City of Life and Dearh

There have been a number of good films about the Japanese invasion (and destruction) of the Chinese capital of Nanking in 1937 (an infamous tragedy now referred to as the Rape of Nanking). Director Lu Chuan’s version of the story, the stunning City of Life and Death, is one of the great ones. Shot in gorgeous black and white by cinematographer Yu Cao, the film makes the bold choice of leaving the politics of the war behind in favor of telling the story of the people on both ides of the fighting — the invaders and the invaded — to show how they lived and died in the three-day siege of the city. The fact that more than 300,000 people died in the battle for Nanking is a terrible reminder that a lot of people didn’t survive, but the power of the story comes from the fact that some did.