The Best Old Movies on a Big Screen This Week: NYC Repertory Cinema Picks, January 11-18
Empire of the Sun (1987)
Directed by Steven Spielberg
What makes Spielberg’s films so notoriously universal is their focus on the family nucleus and the profound longing to reunite its traditional structure. Even though WWII drama Empire of the Sun is deemed one of his handful of underrated films, it is no exception to the Spielberg canon. Based on the semi-autobiographical novel by J.G. Ballard, it was adapted by the English playwright Tom Stoppard, who likewise experienced in internment camps as a child.
Set during the Japanese occupation of China, the movie centers on a young English boy’s struggle in a Japanese camp, after being separated from his wealthy expatriate family. The boy is portrayed by an adolescent Christian Bale, whose joyously captivating performance (arguably the film’s strongest feat) ranges wide from physical stunts to melodramatic bursts of rage and tears, and the angelic performance of a hair-raising Welsh lullaby, “Suo Gân.”The film erupts with some wonderful WWII clichés that only Hollywood can get away with, larger-than-life cinematography, and a cool, sly John Malkovich. What else do you really need? Alejandro Veciana (January 14, 2:30pm at the Metrograph’s Spielberg series, introduced by a conversation with Molly Haskell, author of Steven Spielberg: A Life in Films)