Director: Jonathan Teplitzky Reviewer: Paul Sorrell  

Based on the bestselling book by Eric Lomax, this film traverses the experiences of one man from being a prisoner of the Japanese during the Second World War to his return and marriage in the UK and the anguished outworking of the unfinished business he had left behind him in the jungles of South-East Asia. My first reaction to seeing Colin Firth and Nicole Kidman cast in the leading roles was that they would lend an inappropriate gloss to a film dealing with such horrific subject matter. But as the story progressed, it seemed that the presence of two big stars acted to place a veil, however slight, between us and the raw horror unfolding onscreen.

The love story woven around the main plot serves a similar function. Eric and Patti meet and fall in love on a train journey into Scotland, and it is the motif of trains and journeying that in many ways holds the film together. Eric is fascinated – even obsessed – with railways and locomotives and everything about them, from track gauges to timetables.

Following their marriage, Patti comes to realise that the shy, kind man she has committed her life to is harbouring a deeply troubling secret. She seeks out one of his companions, Finlay, captured with Eric after the fall of Singapore, and finds out something of their terrible experiences as prisoners of the Japanese. She learns of their work as slave labourers on the infamous Thai–Burma railroad and the brutal beatings and torture endured by Eric for making a radio set and a map of the railway.

Much later, in the 1980s, Eric learns that his principal tormentor, Nagase, a young translator from the Kempeitai – the Japanese military’s equivalent of the Gestapo – is still alive and working in the Burmese prison camp which has been turned into a museum devoted to the reconciliation of former enemies. Stung at Nagase’s apparent cowardice and hypocrisy, and challenged by Finlay, Eric returns to the scene of his suffering where the final acts of the drama unfold.

While the power and truth underlying The Railway Man are undeniable, I do have some reservations. Relying on a pair of international stars to carry the story has some advantages, but it has resulted in a certain lack of subtlety. Eric’s change of heart towards his erstwhile torturer is mediated through events – suicides, journeys, meetings, confrontations – rather than the more subtle (and murkier) passages of the heart. The details of their meetings have also been changed for dramatic effect. Strongly recommended, nonetheless, but not for the faint of heart.

Published in Tui Motu magazine. March 2014: 29.