Wow. Proof that like with A.I. (you'll come around), Spielberg is at his best with alien protagonists (E.T. doesn't count) in tales of perseverance marked by perverse messiness. John Williams misses the mark big time in the desolate third act emphasizing grandeur in isolation and loneliness (NO! BAD!) as does Spielberg mistakenly in a few scenes of young Bale's personal awakening, but this is vibrant storytelling that is ambitious, powerful, and overreaching. Clearly, Spielberg is "developing" from the ladler of bombast that directed The Color Purple into the Serious Filmmaker of Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan, but for its momentary missteps I really might prefer this one. Also as with A.I. (again: you'll come around), Spielberg channels a Late Great (Lean) to discover something about himself. This is a mad child playing war before, after, and during time out. Ten years after Ryan, his WWII Oscar-robbed epic looks like a cross between a video game and a man playing a boy playing war. Very seriously. Empire of the Sun bypasses that (admittedly effective and occasionally admirable) fraudulence for something more original and haunting and rooted in memorial: the shrewdest child on the planet driven batshit insane!
The Spielberg of Today would better know how to handle some of the irritating tonal issues that stand out (the pilot in the P-51 waving, the glorious backdrop of war that Jim ignores to watch the start of lovemaking, the John Williams intrusions, etc.) but between what Spielberg and others perceived as the Clash between Entertainer and Grown-Up Storyteller, there is (LIKE A.I.!) one of the most fascinating, personal, revealing, and vibrant film of the man's career.
Empire of the Sun
1895-1999
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