by Joseph Davis, Contributing Writer
I’d be willing to bet that if I asked most Americans what happened during the Pacific campaign of the Second World War, they would give me some basic understanding of the events between Pearl Harbor and the surrender of Japan. However, if I asked them what happened afterwards, there probably would be a huge gap of information between 1945 and the beginning of the Vietnam War. Well, this month’s Out of Market, the 2020 Dutch film De Oost or The East, is set during the return of Dutch forces to their former colonies in modern day Indonesia, after Japan had been defeated. Set in the focus of one soldier serving in the Dutch military while attempting to regain control and to prevent the spread of the eventually successful rebellion and independence of Indonesia, I felt like it was fitting to take a dive into an aspect of the post-World War II world that was overshadowed by events in Europe and Asia.
Authors note: this film depicts some visceral scenes set in an armed conflict, and includes themes such as torture, the depictions of war crimes, and suicide. The film also contains language and imagery that can rightly be considered offensive. Viewer discretion is advised.
Firstly, I want to talk a bit about our primary character, Johan de Vries (Martijn Lakemeier). We have a character who is, to put it best, a textbook case of a character who, in trying to escape his past, instead becomes the thing he wants to avoid. I honestly like this being the perspective of the movie, because I feel it helps make the character deeper in the beginning, explaining why he is motivated to make the choices he does. Johan wants to help the people from what he perceives as the enemy, and when he finds a way he thinks he can do so, he jumps at the opportunity, almost without thinking until it’s so late that what he’s actually doing isn’t helping at all. Granted, this also makes it a hard movie to watch, with some of the subject matter being presented, but from a creative standpoint, I think it’s a good character study to show how easily you can find out that you’re doing the one thing you wanted to prevent. It’s a choice that firmly hits home in a fantastic way for this movie.
Next, I want to talk about the setting. Being set in Indonesia during the post-Second World War timeframe, it gives it an air of some of the most known Hollywood movies set in Vietnam. The similarities, both in the real world and in storytelling, are very much present. You have the characters who are questioning a mission against a determined enemy who want who they view as an occupying or oppressive force out of their lands. It’s definitely an area that can cause cognitive dissonance in a way, as the characters we follow feel like they’re liberating their colonies from Japanese control and trying to restore order, while the people who they believe they’re protecting very much don’t feel the same. Not only that, but, with some exceptions, there isn’t really a point in the film where you can see clearly who the rebels are, which I think is important. It very much makes the film clear that this isn’t a case of black and white or good and evil, but several shades of gray. That definitely is what helps get the film to the climax it wants, and makes it all the more poignant for the way Johan views himself, the war, and what he’s doing.
Finally, I want to talk about the one thing I didn’t like about this movie. At times it changes its perspective from the past to the “present.” I understand why director Jim Taihuttu made the decision to have these scenes implemented through this movie how it was, because it does bridge the scenes that we see, and makes it clear how both scenes you see prior to and after the modern day scenes affect de Vries when he returns home. But in many ways, I find them either unnecessary or disjointed. Instead, I wish that they would have been edited in order to keep it at the end of the movie entirely, or set it in a way where they helped the film flow better than it did. Some of them worked well spliced between the moments of the past, but most of them slowed the movie down instead. Most of the scenes where Johan is home are fine on their own, but overall they really do hurt this one for how they seem to interrupt the action.
When it comes to the question of whether I’d recommend this to an American audience, I honestly pause for a moment to think about it. Overall, it is hard to watch — not because it’s bad or poorly acted, but because the subject matter it discusses and how it is depicted is a difficult subject to talk about. However, those sometimes are the discussions we need to have, as to act like they never happened is to ignore the worst moments in history, and to not learn and to work to make the world better than we found it. This movie serves as a lesson of how good intentions can lead to moments where calling bad or a mistake would be a gross understatement. From that view alone, De Oost is important in its message to remind us how the hero of a story is a matter of perspective, and how quickly the urge to act can turn sour for someone who doesn’t consider the consequences. For that reason alone, I’d say it’s worth consideration for someone to watch.
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