The Forgotten Campaign: The Ordeal of War and the Purgatory of the Mind from the perspective of "Mortals"

Author: Gong Jinping, Associate Professor, Art Education Center, Fudan University, Doctor of Literature

In 1977, the film "Distant Bridge" recreated the entire process of Arnhem's airborne battle, the largest in the history of world war and known as "Operation Market Garden". The film praises the heroic Allied soldiers and the Dutch Resistance in a tragic and high-spirited tone, but the embarrassing encounter and tragic fate of the Allied paratroopers also make the audience realize the huge disaster brought by the general's decision-making mistakes to the soldiers and civilians, and the cruel truth of "one success (success) and defeat" is exhausted.

More than forty years later, the film Forgotten Campaign focuses on the Battle of the Scheldt river after the failure of Operation Market Garden. The battle seems to be worthless in scale and impact, and has historically been little known. Therefore, the creators did not choose an epic grand narrative to restore the whole picture of this battle, nor did they intend to create a realistic and shocking audio-visual bombardment, but from a more humane perspective, they showed what kind of survival struggles and mental torture ordinary individuals in different camps were experiencing under a specific war situation.

Poster for the movie Forgotten Campaign

The Forgotten Campaign has three protagonists: the British pilot Will, the Dutch soldier VanStafleuren in the German army, and the Dutch girl Turn. The film thus unfolds three narrative threads, piecing together the general appearance and local details of the battle, and interweaving shocking and thought-provoking connotations of human nature.

Perhaps, in the historical record, these "mortals" are "difficult to ascend", they have no outstanding merits, their deeds are insignificant, and they often become cold figures drowned in empty narratives. However, it is the fate of countless ordinary people who weave into a complex historical landscape, and even affect the direction and speed of the wheel of history. "Forgotten Battles" gives an affectionate glimpse of these "unknown people", which not only reflects a deep humanitarian stance, but also highlights the delicacy and authenticity of historical writing.

The film takes the eyes of three characters as the point of view, allowing the audience to understand the activities of the Dutch Resistance Through Turn's perspective, to contact the allied combat experience from Will's perspective, and to recognize the cruelty and evil of the German army from van Stafleuren's perspective. Each of these three characters has their own trajectories, but their fates and values are profoundly rewritten by this battle. At the end of the film, VanStafleuren saves Turn from the muzzle of the gun and is shot several times himself, and Will happens to witness Turn helplessly stopping the bleeding for Vanstafleurn, the first and last time the three have intersected. The gathering and dispersion of the three people is like the collision of the fates of countless people in the war, with an indescribable wonderful fate and tragic fate, and even tells the cruelty and absurdity of the war, and also witnesses the human nature that has not been annihilated in the killing. Because VanStafleur carried out the order to shoot Turner's brother, and now he saved Turner; Vanstaflon once let Will have a way to live on the battlefield, but in the blink of an eye, Will saw Vanstafleur die.

The most moving part of the film is not the battle scenes, but the psychological arc of the characters in the war. Turn initially felt that the war was far away from her, and even had no impact on her daily life, but when her brother was wanted and brutally killed by the Germans, she realized that the national break and the death of the family were the relationship between lips and teeth, and then took the initiative to send intelligence to the resistance. As a result, the surviving Turne is destined to live forever in the imprint of war, and she may have a deeper understanding of the relationship between the individual and her home country. There is also Will, who once had a romanticized, gamified imagination of war, and even joined the battle with a rebellious mentality that did not want to be protected by his father and was eager to show his rebelliousness. However, on that breakout journey, he saw a subtle change in people's hearts in a state of uncertainty: some people would flee from the battle, some would retreat in spite of difficulties, and some people would be determined and fearless. There was also Van Stafleuren, who had always tried to maintain a simple human feeling and normal human nature on the battlefield, but the ruthlessness of the German army and the impermanence of the fate of the Dutch people deeply touched him, and finally chose conscience in a strong war-weary mood.

The film has a distinct anti-war color, but this "anti-war", instead of using the angry posture of King Kong to accuse the war of harming the individual's body and mind, but trying to avoid showing the tyranny of the war in the fierce dramatic conflict and stimulating scenes, but preferring to depict the individual's living state and mental state in a daily atmosphere and with almost documentary techniques. For example, Turne and his father struggle in vain to rescue Derek, Will and four of his comrades are anxiously breaking through after the forced landing, and Van Stafleuren suffers repeated internal pains during the war. In these scenes, the situation of the characters is certainly urgent, dangerous, and torturous, but in the external movements, they are stoic and low-key, even numb and calm, and there is no opportunity to show the opening and closing of emotions. This is precisely the narrative style that the film strives to create, placing the audience in a dramatic situation of "loose outside and tight inside", making war a background factor, highlighting the common pain experienced by characters in different camps: war devours life and conscience, and war magnifies the darkness and weakness of people's hearts. This is precisely the success of the film, which does not allow the audience to blindly immerse themselves in the joy of victory with the pride of anti-fascism, but from the more real living situation, let the audience see the fate of specific individuals in the war and the inner ups and downs.

"Forgotten Battles" does not favor those names that are prominent in history, but has the meaning of establishing a biography for ordinary people, and it also has the compassion of showing ordinary people being crushed in the war machine. This is understandable why the tone of the film is cold, there is no highlight and warm colors, but the whole process is in a gray state, the cold weather is chilling, and the surrounding depression is depressing. The film also uses a large number of dark night scenes and interior scenes to create a suffocating sense of heaviness. And those battle scenes, which do not give people a sense of heroism and grandeur, but make people feel inexplicably lonely and dignified. The characteristics of these audiovisual languages show that the film tries to restore the true face of war and restore the real situation and mentality of people in war, so that the audience realizes that the helplessness of people in war, the fragility of people's hearts in war, and the complexity of human nature in war are so calm as water and so thrilling.

Of course, the film excessively pursues the narrative tone of the cool and harsh, and at the same time wants to highlight the documentary image style, maintaining a detached and caring attitude towards the three protagonists, which is conducive to avoiding the emotional climax of a moment through sensational scenes, but encouraging the audience to enter the depths of history with a calm attitude, enter the subtleties of ordinary people's hearts, feel the war storm on the fate of individuals, and the impact on individual hearts. However, this "separation" effect is, after all, a double-edged sword, which will affect the audience's sense of identification with the characters and weaken the suspense of the plot development and the fate of the characters. Coupled with the fact that the character images of the three protagonists are slightly thin, lack of personality charm and psychological depth, the audience is emotionally indifferent and relaxed in the entire viewing process, and it is difficult to have an empathetic effect on the characters, and it will not be worried about the direction of the plot, which in turn greatly reduces the emotional appeal and ideological appeal of the film. (Gong Jinping)

Source: Guangming Network - Literary And Art Review Channel