A rchive Date
[ 10-01-2004 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Mass Media ]
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[http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/chapman.html
Samurai's code just doesn't cut it
JIM CHAPMAN, London Free Press
2004-01-10
I recently went to see The Last Samurai, Tom Cruise's latest big screen epic. Set in Japan in the 1870s, it reminded me of Braveheart - with kimonos instead of kilts. That's using a pretty broad brush to paint the picture, but you get the idea.
Like many movie epics, it had only a passing acquaintance with history, but I still enjoyed it. For 2ae hours, it alternately rocked, socked and soft-soaped the audience, pulling us through an emotional wringer and spitting us out the other side, thoroughly entertained, if not enlightened.
But there was another dimension to it that was more troubling than entertaining. Dramatic licence and historical flexibility notwithstanding, it was built on a lie. On the surface, the movie tells the story of the fight between the forces of stable and harmonious tradition and those of rapacious modernity in a Japan emerging from centuries of feudal isolation.
But the underlying premise is that there is something good and noble in the cult of the warrior, that conducting oneself in a supposedly "honourable" fashion grants licence for the most violent abuses of one's fellow human beings.
The problem I have with this is that our society has no universal definition of what honour actually is. Criminal biker gangs claim it guides their actions, as do Ku Klux Klan members, and even the most fanatical terrorists.
As we sat in the theatre, our emotions were skilfully manipulated by the director and the actors. We were encouraged to sympathize with the dying (but hugely romanticized) way of life represented by the samurai warriors, and to reject, as they did, the regimented uniformity of the modern world.
We allowed ourselves to be massaged by the subtle and repeated references to honour and duty, and seduced by the way their military manifestations were presented as the necessary cornerstone of society.
You could feel the tension in the air during the skilfully choreographed battle scenes, as the entire audience held its breath, hoping "our" guy's brand of violence would prevail over the other guy's.
The movie's "modern" Japanese soldiers followed their duty to the emperor and eventually mowed down the charging samurai with machine- guns, the ultimate example of industrial killing efficiency.
But not before the samurai, who also claimed allegiance to the emperor, had slaughtered rank upon rank of nattily-attired soldiers with old-fashioned but still deadly swords and arrows. Both sides marched to their deaths in the name of some primitive concept of an "honourable" death in battle. But there was no honour there, just madness. And great sadness. To what end?
By the movie's end, thousands of people had been "killed" and more thousands widowed and orphaned. Yet no compassion was directed toward the women whose mates would never return and no concern expressed for fatherless children.
I enjoyed the movie immensely - as a piece of movie-making. But I cannot help but wish it had worked harder to expose the fundamental foolishness of the "warrior's code" instead of treating it like a worthwhile way of life.
If you want to see truly honourable behaviour, consider parents who constantly sacrifice for their children, people who dedicate their lives to the service of others, and those who deal with life's most profound challenges with dignity and grace.
And don't forget the soldiers and peacekeepers who risk their own lives to preserve the lives and freedoms of others.
There are things worth dying for, but the misguided interpretation of honour depicted in The Last Samurai shouldn't be one of them.
Jim Chapman is host of CJBK-AM Radio's Talk of the Town. His column appears Saturdays.
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