I don't see how it would be possible to tell the story without showing the violence and most of the book was, indeed, a torturous experience for Zamperini and his fellow boat and prison mates.
Personally, in listening to the book is it amazing to me that the prisoners didn't just turn on their guards and murder them in their beds regardless of the consequences that would have followed.
Another conclusion that I made is that cultures are not equal. I was very uplifed by Zamperini’s later religious conversion, dedication to doing the Lord's will, his willingness to forgive, and the positive outcome that this conversion had on the remainder of his life.
His postwar experiences just floored me, but I suspect they will spend less time on that than I hope they would.
If he had ended up drinking himself to death, his story would still be an amazing one, but nobody would really know about it.
That he redeemed both himself and his brutal captors, is a message to bring a fullness to the heart and tears to the eyes.
I lived in Japan and the Philippines as a kid, and when I learned about the Bataan Death March (because we lived near the route, and saw the markers on the roads) I began to read up on the allied POW experience in the Far East, and it was a real eye-opener for me. It was around that same time that I read “I Cannot Forgive” about the Holocaust and I think was 11 or so when I read that. It was nearly unbelievable to me. But it gave me an introduction to what man can do to other men.
The one book I read that left an impact on me was a large volume, don’t remember the name, but it covered all aspects, the brutality, the horrible transport ships, the sub and air attacks by their own side, the starvation, the cold, it seemed so different from what read had happened in the European theater to allied troops.
All this fits with the experience of a man who burned for revenge and nearly drank himself to death, only to find God instead. That is what I got out of that book.
If you haven’t seen the movie then do not question critics
And you have not read what I’ve said so why question it?
I am a combat veteran. Very interested in educating youth on the history of this country and active in doing so. My favorite film is band of brothers which is so bloody and violent in its true depiction of events that many refuse to watch it
This film is poorly written by the Coen brothers
We saw it with an extended family group of adolescents and adults who after the movie, along with the audience, walked out looking at the floor shaking their heads and stating that whoever had not read the book learned nothing of the important aspects of zamperellis life All of them. And a few war vets among them
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Maybe because the guards had the guns while the prisoners were malnourished and battling diseases.
I had the same question about the prisoners turning on the guards. I believe that these prisoners were not easy to come by. Keeping them alive gave them a valuable human resource. It seems like to me, if the guards had to shoot all the prisoners, they would have shot themselves out of a job. Thus, shooting prisoners would have been a last resort scenario they would not want to make. Also, I wonder where the Japanese would be if they shot all those coal workers at their distribution hub? They would have been without coal. That would be like shooting themselves in the foot.