Reviewed by Ricky Ghosh Dastidar
Stars Christian Bale, Steve Zahn, Jeremy Davies,
Zach Grenier, Galen Yuen, Teerawat Mulvilai,
Marshall Bell, François Chau
Written by Werner Herzog
Certification UK 12A | US PG-13
Runtime 108 minutes
Directed by Werner Herzog
Rescue Dawn is based on the true story of German-born US fighter pilot Dieter Dengler. Captured by the Vietcong and confined to a jungle prison run by sadistic officials, the film chronicles his struggle, survival and ultimately, freedom, in a war-torn Vietnam of the 1960s. Dengler is played by Christian Bale, and support comes in the form of Steve Zahn and Jeremy Davies as his fellow prisoners of war. Forced to co-exist in a make-shift camp, the story balances the brutality of war and the camaraderie of captivity not seen in a way since Apocalypse now and Midnight express respectively.
Herzog had earlier made a documentary about Dengler (Little Dieter Needs To Fly) 10 years prior to the film and his familiarity with the character is perfectly reflected in Bale’s portrayal. He demands strong performances from his actors to emphasize the harshness and despair of their tortured existence and Bale magnificently captures the spirit of Dengler as a man who simply refuses to go down without a fight. Zahn also manages to hold his own in an altogether more challenging side-kick role than the ones he is used to and Davies is a revelation as the imbalanced and edgy soldier Gene. Their dedication to the project and the physicality of the roles can be clearly seen as Bale and Davies starve themselves to epic proportions and undertake tasks such risks as trekking barefoot in the Vietnamese jungles. Chained up to each-other during the nights and forced to survive on live worms, bugs and miniscule portions of rice, the weight loss and beards would seem obligatory to preserve the integrity of the film, but these actors go way above and beyond the call of duty.
The portrayal of the enemy is also skilfully handled as they are represented as multi-faceted individuals, with some of them even possessing sympathetic qualities. The ending may be given away in the title but this takes none of the charm away from the film because the end scenes are so exhilarating, the audience can breathe a huge sigh of relief when the moment finally comes. The dialogue is kept to a bare minimum; however, the breath-taking cinematography and Herzog’s experiences as a documentarian add to the realism of the film and make you completely empathise with Bale’s character. The final result is highly engaging and together with the fact that it’s a true story and one that has been tackled in the past, by Herzog nonetheless, it enables the viewer to embark on a journey alongside Dengler that remains with them, long after the final credits have rolled.
_______________________________________
SECOND OPINION | Craig McPherson *** Rescue Dawn marks German director Werner Herzog’s second visit to the story of Dieter Dengler, a German-American fighter pilot who was the sole surviving member of a mass escape from a Vietnam war era Pathet Lao prison camp in Laos. In 1997 Herzog helmed a documentary for German television titled Little Dieter Needs to Fly. Both Herzog and Dengler were products of an early post war Germany that struggled to escape the rubble and impoverishment of the failed Nazi regime.
Whereas Herzog sought refuge in the world of film, Dengler became fascinated with the idea of becoming a fighter pilot after witnessing American planes attacking his village as a boy. He went on to emigrate to the US and become a naval fighter pilot. In 1966, while taking part in a covert bombing mission to disrupt Viet Cong supply lines behind the Laotian border, Dengler’s single engine Skyraider was hit by anti-aircraft fire and he was forced to crash land. Shortly thereafter he was captured by communist Pathet Lao troops allied to the Viet Cong.
Rescue Dawn dramatically recounts the capture and torture of Dengler (Bale) at the hands of the Pathet Lao. He established himself as a stabilising focus for a disparate band of American and South Vietnamese captives, who were already half wonky from months or years of imprisonment. From there Dengler masterminded their escape from the camp and braved the ardors of the jungle with fellow American Duane Martin (Zahn) as they sought rescue. As a vehicle for layered film critiques, Rescue Dawn marks Herzog’s return to his glory days of such engrossing and controversial works as Aguirre: The Wrath of God and Fitzcarraldo. Initially I viewed it as a flaw that Herzog opted not to delve, even briefly, into Dengler’s childhood upbringing by his grandparents, whose opposition to Hitler caused them to be declared a political enemy of the Nazi party, thinking this would have lent greater weight to the captured Dengler’s refusal to sign a Viet Cong declaration denouncing the American regime which would potentially have garnered him a quick release. This omission, however, might well have been deliberate by Herzog to show how Dengler was more a product of his adoptive country and the opportunities it provided, than of his past.
Herzog’s casting choices are equally impressive for their willingness to subjugate their bodies for their roles. Christian Bale’s body-altering weight loss extremes of The Machinist are echoed by virtually every actor portraying a prisoner of the Pathet Lao. Its remarkable how these guys were able to survive even the rigors of a jungle movie shoot, given that they’d reduced their bodies to shear skin and bone for the production. For all the on-screen torture, starvation and punishment endured by Bale and Zahn, Herzog could easily have opted to title this movie “Triumph of the Will to Survive”, in homage to fellow German filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl. In a film year dominated by animated cooking rats, transforming robots, flying dogs and wizards and spells, Rescue Dawn manages to drive home the point that everything from scraps of rice to a candy bar all the way through to those lofty ideals and aspirations that define us as human beings are vital, essential, and not to be trivialised, and weren’t for Dieter Dengler.