The Railway Man

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Jonathan Teplitzky, Starring: Colin Firth, Nicole Kidman and Stellan Skarsgard

Early 80s' England, a middle-age man meets an attractive woman on a train. After some conversation, it's immediately apparent they have fallen for one another. In spite of this, the man exits the train at the first stop and realizing he may have made a grievous error, meets the woman down the line and in doing so, begins a deliriously happy courtship and marriage. Or so we think.

It isn't long after they've set up their domicile before Patti, the wife,(Nicole Kidman) finds her husband Eric (Colin Firth) writhing on the floor in agony and it isn't long before we learn the cause of such suffering. Patti discovers Eric was once a prisoner of war in the pacific theater in WWII, more specifically southeast asia. Eric's reticence about his experiences leads her to his friend and former fellow prisoner Finlay (Stellan Skarsgard), who divulges what he and Eric and others endured at the hands of the Japanese in a labor camp.

Eric and Finlay were part of an army engineering group whose skills the Japanese enlisted in the camp but the engineer's cooperation only goes so far as they use their considerable technical skills to craft a radio to receive allied news of the war's progress. Learning from a British broadcast that the Germans are losing ground in the European theater, morale surges. The engineers become determined to spread the news to the British troops and native laborers, who were unlucky enough not to be spared the punishing, torturous, back-breaking work on the railway the Japanese hope to build through the Burmese jungles and mountains. Eric's formidable knowledge of trains enables him to enlighten his fellow engineers that the railway system the Japanese are determined to build was once considered by British engineers but upon surveying the Burmese terrain and landscape, dismissed the idea as a work of brutality. He also informs them that such a project couldn't be accomplished by laborers alone; only an army could carry out the task. Eric's information, supported by his calculations, is met with anxious expressions by his colleagues. His ominous declaration is confirmed when he sees the British army regulars working under savage conditions on the railway. He even meets his former commanding officer on the labor crew as they dig through a hill of rock in the sweltering sun. The officer's face is one of exhaustion and madness as his blank stare reveals his mental and physical deterioration.

The radio is soon discovered, which brings the engineers before Japanese disciplinary officers. Seeing a fellow engineer endure a barbaric beating, Eric steps forward to accept culpability for the infraction. This leads to unspeakable torture and cruelty, but Finlay's account can only go so far, for even he doesn't know what Eric endured at the hands of the Japanese officers. He warns Patti that an attempt to force Eric to recollect might be fruitless and she could never hope to understand what he suffered. Undeterred, she presses on, hoping to understand what the Japanese visited upon Eric's mind and body. Ultimately we see what he suffered: severe beatings on his body with what resembles a hard axe-handle and often on broken bones in the process of healing. He also undergoes what is the Japanese version of waterboarding; a horrific and disturbing scene in the film. Though the Japanese officers are mostly single-mindedly sadistic in their methods, one officer shows compassion though he dare not express it to the soldiers intent on torturing Eric.

It is clear what happened 40 years earlier hasn't passed from the minds of those that shared Eric's imprisonment, for Finlay makes a statement by hanging himself above railway tracks (a poorly deployed, symbolically heavy-handed image). The act also serves as a warning to Eric about the perils of leaving the past unaddressed. Before Finlay's suicide, he gives Eric an article from a newspaper overseas about the officer who presided over Eric's torture; now a tour guide at the very labor camp where the British soldiers were held. As a way to face his grim past, Eric travels to the camp, now a tourist destination, to confront his former nemesis.

The film is based on Eric Lomax's real war and post-war experiences. The performances from the cast are powerful and affecting, particularly Firth's, who shows Eric's anguish and controlled rage when confronting his former interrogator. The actors cast in the roles of the principle character's younger selves are also exceptional. As the film swings from the war to present and back again, we see how deep, emotional scars he bears in middle-age are as raw as the physical torture was excruciating.

Most of The Railway Man works; the story is riveting and Eric Lomax's experiences make for a poignant film, though I don't think it wears the mantle of greatness. It is definitely worth the time and emotional commitment.