The book (which I will get to below) portrays a vibrant multi-ethnic Honolulu and indeed a relatively diverse army. OK, there were not a lot of African-Americans in Hawaii ( 0.05% in 1940, rising to 0.5% in 1950) but the biggest single ethnic group then was the Japanese (37% in 1940 and 32% in 1950) there is not a single identifiably Japanese face in the film. It's now ten years since we had an Oscar-winning film with a speaking part for a black actor. Whitewashing: I am sorry to have to do this yet again. I liked it a lot more than last year's The Greatest Show on Earth, which is also a romantic drama set in a stressful professional environment the plot is more substantial, the characters more sympathetic and the situation more interesting. No detailed spoilers, but it does not have a happy ending. It's the story of three soldiers, and the women who love two of them, grinding out their individuality in the suffocating environment of the US Army base on Hawaii immediately before Pearl Harbour. To cut to the chase, I rather enjoyed this, and it's grazing my top quartile, just below All About Eve (losing points for whitewashing) and just above Olivier's Hamlet.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |