A War Story
Encyclopedia
A War Story is a docudrama produced, written, and directed by Anne Wheeler
Anne Wheeler
Anne Wheeler, OC is a Canadian film and television writer, producer and director. Graduating in Mathematics from the University of Alberta she was a computer programmer before traveling abroad. Her years of travels inspired her to become a storyteller and when she returned she joined a group of...
telling the story of her father Major Ben Wheeler when he was captured by the Japanese during the Second World War.
The film also shows the Japanese perspective as it shows the harsh, inhuman treatment of the POWs. During that time, A Japanese soldier would kill himself before allowing himself to be taken prisoner. This cultural difference caused the Japanese to look at captured soldiers as having no honour. At the end of the film, as the Americans arrived to liberate the camps, many of the Japanese guards at the camp committed suicide rather than become prisoners.
Plot
Major Ben Wheeler was a Canadian doctor assigned to SingaporeSingapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
when the Japanese forced an unconditional surrender of the British in 1942. The movie recounts, through the pages of his diary, the traumatic experiences of himself and his comrades as POWs in a mining labour camp in northern Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
.
The story is conveyed from two perspectives: the narration of Ben Wheeler
Ben Wheeler (Canadian doctor)
Ben Wheeler was a Canadian doctor in the British Army stationed in Singapore in 1942 when British forces unconditionally surrendered to the Japanese. He had a central role in keeping up the spirits and the health of British and Commonwealth soldiers subjected to harsh treatment while prisoners of...
’s diary (by Donald Sutherland) with dramatized scenes of life in the camp and archival footage of related events, and the vivid, personal stories of Dr. Wheeler's surviving fellow POWs. The film flashes between the story of the camp and Wheeler’s family life before and after the war, as well as interviews of the survivors giving perspectives of the events described by Dr Wheeler.
Dr Wheeler is the protagonist who is portrayed as the major reason the other British POWs survived, both physicially and mentally. This is affirmed by his overarching concern for his men in his writing, other than longing for his wife and family, with the exception of his love and longing for his family. Evidence of feats, compassion and selflessness are also abundantly given by the interviewees, who all owed their lives to him.
Although the Japanese captors are no doubt the cruel and humiliating antagonists, the film does not demonize them. In fact, the final interviewee provides some insightful revelation on how he and his comrades perceive their captors, and the effect of his experience on his life.
Cast
- David Edney as Dr. Ben Wheeler
- Donald SutherlandDonald SutherlandDonald McNichol Sutherland, OC is a Canadian actor with a film career spanning nearly 50 years. Some of Sutherland's more notable movie roles included offbeat warriors in such war movies as The Dirty Dozen, , MASH , and Kelly's Heroes , as well as in such popular films as Klute, Invasion of the...
as the narrator of the diary (voice) - Frank C. Turner as Peter Seed
- Anne WheelerAnne WheelerAnne Wheeler, OC is a Canadian film and television writer, producer and director. Graduating in Mathematics from the University of Alberta she was a computer programmer before traveling abroad. Her years of travels inspired her to become a storyteller and when she returned she joined a group of...
as narrator (voice)