hell in the pacific \/\/ marvin boorman mifune

Hell in the Pacific (1968) stars Lee Marvin, Toshiro Mifune, and no one else.  Literally.  Directed by John Boorman with cinematography by Conrad Hall, the story follows an American pilot and a Japanese naval officer as they fight against the hatred instilled in their respective countries by the war.  While stranded together on a deserted island in the Pacific.

I'm sold on this one-sheet alone.

This film is immensely likable, even lovable, for a variety of reasons: Conrad Hall’s gorgeous cinematography (shot in Palau), two titans of badassery in Marvin and Mifune (Kurosawa’s main man), the exploration of war without melodrama, zealotry, or political ooze.  But the best reason to love the film is that it makes grand use of the medium’s basic convention—pictures moving.  Visual storytelling.

The ultraspare dialogue is unsubtitled and often incomprehensible.  Marvin mutters, rambles, and crookedly croons weird ditties through the movie.  Mifune grunts, commands, and glares.  The words themselves get lost in the picturesque Pacific landscape but the intention behind the words is easy enough to decipher.

There is no voice-over, no pre-action contextualizing, no epilogue, no overt exposition.  It is, in a word, wonderful.

Opening with Mifune, already bearded, staring into a gray dawn from his beach-side survival camp (complete with a bamboo water collection system and fish traps), we soon meet Marvin’s stranded pilot and the two are immediately at odds.  They threaten each other with stick weapons.  Mifune defends his sandy squat with a homemade kendo sword and fire—he surrounds himself with a wall of flame, such is the impetus to repel the Yank invader.  Marvin taunts from afar, tries to steal food and water, and just as they’re about to face off martially, in the rain-soaked jungle interior of the island, he succumbs to dehydration and hunger and collapses in the mud.  Triumphant, Mifune ties him to a log—the captor and the captured playing out a war that’s long forgotten about them.

Break some bones with sticks and stones.

What’s striking about a film that’s relieved of the burden of dialogue and exposition is the efficiency, the seductive leanness.  Once unencumbered, other facets of the film get charged up.  Details of the production design become more significant without a giant directorial finger to point them out amidst the noise.  Marvin’s shirt initially has a ripped sleeve, as the men grow more comfortable in their environs, the damaged sleeve is removed off-camera.  Once the men get into more water-intensive activities, the toes of their boots are cut off to make them into sandals.  Again, off camera.  Mifune’s shirt is knotted at the bottom to preserve the decorum of shirt-wearing while making the island heat more bearable.  You quickly realize that Mifune is a as fastidious as he can be while stranded without supplies on a deserted island.

And without the crutch of dialogue, the actors have to rely almost solely on their facial expressions, their physicality, the tone of their incoherent shouting and babbling.  Rage, reluctance, schadenfreud, exasperation, camaraderie, despair, doubt, childishness, homesickness—all without a monologue or a cruel conversation.

Hall, Marvin, Boorman, Mifune. Wow.

Here’s a two minute segment of the film broken into shots and accompanied by Lalo Schifrin’s occasionally overbearing score:

Mifune, alarmed because he thinks he’s misplaced his captive, spots Marvin down the beach, still tied to his log, downtrodden in a cruciform pose.  Mifune regains his composure, grabs a fishing pole, and strides past Marvin with an odd mix of relief/superiority/self-sickened reactions.  Marvin gives a small lurid grin.

In a magnificently framed shot, Mifune goes to his fishing place beneath of ceiling of stone and throws in his homemade wooden bobber.

Close-up on motionless bobber.

Close-up on Mifune’s face, wracking himself over his sub-human treatment of Marvin.

Wide shot of Mifune fishing alone, framed by the vast gray Pacific.

Close-up of Mifune working it over in his head, turning to look back toward his camp, then pulling the bobber out of the water.

Reverse wide shot of Mifune wrapping his fishing pole up and heading back to camp.

Mifune walking into camp, looking at his feet, the he looks up, startled and runs toward the camera which pulls back to reveal Marvin’s empty log and vine harness; Marvin has cryptically hung Mifune’s binoculars from it; Mifune looks more dejected than angry that Marvin’s escaped, then he looks up, shocked.

Cut to a one-second shot of Marvin looking down on Mifune from his perch above.

Cut to Mifune, disheveled and eye blackened, now in the cruciform log harness.

The best thing about this sequence is that it completely omits the physical confrontation.  You know, just from looking at the two men’s faces, who’s going to win.  Marvin’s one second of confident pitying as he looks down at Mifune obviously trumps Mifune’s confused “are we friends or foes” look.  When I played the trumpet in junior high, my teacher told me that anyone can sound good loud but only great musicians can sound good quiet.  This is analogous to film acting.  Go home Johnny Depp.  Give me Lee Marvin.

(video is not of the above-mentioned scene, but takes place just after Marvin’s capture)

There’s an incredible restraint to the shot sequences throughout the movie.  Boorman doesn’t dwell on the obvious dramas to tell the story.  Instead, he navigates aftereffects, reactions, and moments of isolated intensity.  Using the single brief glimpse of Marvin’s face to tell the story of the ensuing violence is brilliantly economical.  An actual fight scene seems—on the surface—to be clearer, but it would’ve been redundant, muddling, and confusing.  I haven’t been able to find a copy of the script so I’m going to credit Boorman with trusting his actors and the audience enough to let this exchange sit unblemished.

Pressuring these gaps makes for a satisfying viewing experience because it allows the viewer to construct  narrative in these blank moments; it gives them a kind of responsibility that allows them to engage with the film.

Forty-two years later, the film still feels fresh.

Photo credits: cinematographers, filmjournal, connect.in

Tags: hell in the pacific, john boorman, lee marvin, tighten up!, toshiro mifune