Pearl Harbor 2001 made me cry for 3 hours straight
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by Blender Dumbass
Aka: J.Y. Amihud. A Jewish by blood, multifaceted artist with experience in film-making, visual effects, programming, game development, music and more. A philosopher at heart. An activist for freedom and privacy. Anti-Paternalist. A user of Libre Software. Speaking at least 3 human languages. The writer and director of the 2023 film "Moria's Race" and the lead developer of it's game sequel "Dani's Race".
In my review of Bad Boys II I talked about how Michael Bay needed to discharge from Pearl Harbor and do a properly Bayhem! movie. This speculation of mine is largely based on some stories from the set of this movie, where it looked like Bay tried to actually make a properly directed film in the very beginning and then suddenly snapped and started setting up Bayhem! shots out of nowhere in the middle of production. And when people pointed that out to him he told them to "Shut the fuck up" and that he "knows what he is doing". ↩ Reply
There is a lot of hate for this film. Low ratings all through-out and a lot of people seem to genuinely hate it for some reason. When I put it just now to watch I was expecting a movie that tries and then fails to do what it wants to do. I was expecting to see a sudden shift of Bay's direction that everybody is talking about. I was expecting a terrible movie, that I remember poking so much fun at. ↩ Reply
But something changed. Since the last time I saw that film I started really respecting Michael Bay. So this time I took the movie seriously, the way, perhaps Michael Bay took it when making it. And that statement of mine I did in my review of Ambulance... ↩ Reply
Michael Bay is Lars Von Trier of action.
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...truly resonates with me right now. Some better critics understood the value of the attack on Pearl Harbor sequence calling it "spectacular". But those were few and far between. A lot of people misunderstood this sequence as glorification of the attack. A lot of people that I know that critique the film see the attack made with such lavish style as just a lavish extravaganza explosion-fest. And such Hollywood film-making. Such Bayhem! is in bad taste when it comes to such depressing events in history. ↩ Reply
Re-watching it now made me think of another similarly misunderstood scene, in Lars Von Trier filmography. His 2018 controversial film The House That Jack Built contains a horrific sequence where the main character first kills and then mutilates little kids. All of it shown with gruesome detail. ↩ Reply
When I saw it in the cinema, the auditorium scared me to my bones. They were laughing. They were having a great time. While something fucked up was happening in front of me on the screen. ↩ Reply
In an interview with Von Trier and the actor who is playing the killer Matt Dillon, Dillon said that he was afraid to see the movie because of this very sequence, until he calmed himself down remembering how it was shot and knowing that in fact all of this is fake and movie-magic. That is when Von Trier interjected him, telling how indeed real all of that is. How in the real world people like that actually exist and they do things like that and much much worse. And just because in the movie it is fake, it doesn't mean it is not real. ↩ Reply
This was in my head when the attack on Pearl Harbor began on this re-watch. And suddenly everything clicked into place. The shit Michael Bay shows in the movie is real. Yes, he is using very expensive shots to show it. But that doesn't mean that this didn't happen. It is a real event that really happened. And Bay is making it as scary as he can do with the set of skills that he knows he has. ↩ Reply
I believe that most people who were seeing that movie have not even considered for a second the fact that this whole thing is indeed fucking real. They were all thinking about the movie-magic. About the visual effects. About the spectacular explosions. But somebody, for fuck sake, had to live though all this, and Bay is trying to pay tribute to them by making you go through the same horror. ↩ Reply
A lot of people cannot handle this shit. And so they start excusing themselves. They start looking at the technicalities. They break into laughter at inappropriate times. This is what happened to the auditorium when I saw The House That Jack Built and that same thing happened to people who watched Pearl Harbor and thought that the attack sequence was too Bayhem!. They were so used to explosions and gun fire to be the peak of mindless entertainment, that for them it didn't even register that it might just be something that happens to people. ↩ Reply
For me especially I think the movie is so strong because I know how it is to be at war. I know what the explosions are like in reality. ( I live in Israel ). I know how it feels when shit blows up far away. And how scary it is to hear those distant booms. And I know how it is when shit blows up right next to you. And how it is to anticipate that something will blow up. Me watching that scene this time was utterly traumatic. I was literally shaking from fear and dripping with tears. This is some genuinely good fucking film-making. And believe me, even if Michael Bay had never seen real warzones, he sure knows how it feels, just because of how he likes to make his movies. Most people that saw Pear Harbor don't know shit. And this kind of film just goes straight through them and kicks their defense mechanisms into action. So they laugh and enjoy themselves instead. ↩ Reply
But okay. Some critics actually kind of agree with me about the actual attack sequence. But they surely disagree with me on the rest of the film. ↩ Reply
Let me set this straight. I think that both Josh Hartnett and Kate Beckinsale are much better actors than Ben Affleck. That said I do believe Ben Affleck did a descent job on this film. The love story between those 3 characters, critics call banal and uninteresting, is still very fucking touching actually. If you tune yourself to Michael Bay's frequency... and I have been tuning myself to his frequency for a long time now, this works. Like really fucking works! ↩ Reply
His film-making in this movie is less Bayhem!. He does go for a more grounded melodramatic style. Borrowing something from Cameron and Spielberg. And I did notice when the film starts to slip into Bayhem!. It happens roughly when the attack is about begin. He holds onto the melodramatic film-making style all the way until he know he needs his usual sensitivities to kick into action. So yes, shut the fuck up, he actually knows what he is doing. ↩ Reply
Watching the film this time, with full respect and seeing the maestro Bay crafting this film in the best way he can. Listening to the Hanz Zimmer score. And really paying attention to what's happening. I started crying. I started crying in the beginning as the kid saves his friend from an abusive father. I cried more when Affleck met Beckinsale at the train station. I cried more when Affleck told her that he needs to go to England. I cried when they thought he died. I cried when he came back. I cried when the attack began. I cried through out the attack. I cried after the attack. And for fuck sake I cried when that little boy shows up in the end of the movie. And Affleck is taking him onto the plane and they ride in the most beautiful of golden-hours. I watched the end credits role and cried during that. And I'm crying now writing this review. ↩ Reply
Fuck! Michael Bay... I love you man! ↩ Reply
Happy Hacking!!! ↩ Reply
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