Review of Pearl Harbor: America`s Darkest Day

Introduction

For those of you who’ve seen the film at the cinema and are tricked into thinking this is the real Hollywood article released dead early are going to be disappointed. This does however discuss the events leading up to… the bombing of, and the after-effects of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour.

This is an American documentary told very much from an American point of view. It aims to pack in the entire history of the German, Italian and Japanese dictatorship uprising in the 30s, the start of the Second World War and America’s position that this was a “European War” – in about 5 minutes of air time – then slowing the pace down and getting back to Pearl Harbour.

Whilst the documentary is technically and historically correct, it provides too much information flashing the same images of Hitler, Mussolini and “A.N.Other” war footage over again and again. Considering the millions of miles of WWII footage that actually exists I find the lack of different pictures to correspond with the commentators information sadly lacking in the research for this piece. The pacing is awful – one minute you are supposed to absorb 9 years of history leading up to Pearl Harbour, the next we are slowed right down to get insider information from a USMC soldier present during the attack. Then we speed up again to skip through the “European bit” of the war, and slowed down for the next “Pearl Harbour” piece.

This does tend to portray the documentary as Americans having one, and only one concern – America! Still, if you are already versed in WWII history, this offers an accurate overview of Pearl Harbour, albeit rushed in some places and slow in others. It also presents an interesting conspiracy theory. I’ll leave you to watch the DVD to see what this is and you can judge for yourself the plausibility of this.

Video

The DVD is presented in a 4:3 ratio and DVD doesn’t show this subject matter any better than video would. I’m not going to prattle on about “shadow details” or anything like that because it wasn’t recorded with the exceptional presentation that the DVD media can provide. It is clean and clear of artefacts, however some of the footage was shot in the 40s so expect the normal sorts of pops and crackles that was evident in film of this era.

Audio

Stereo only. Speech is clear and articulate, and the background sound is exactly that – background. It does not enhance nor deny the presentation of anything. Average.

Features

This is where the disk does raise itself a few points, as the extras are very extensive. There are three to mention, with the shortest one clocking in at approx. 45 minutes. They vary in quality, but one also has to take into account the time they were made.

December 7, 1941 – Described as a “John Ford directed classic”, this is a film that depicts the story of Pearl Harbour from an American point of view. It was released in 1943 and won an Academy Award for Best Short Subject. It mixes real footage with models and to be honest has dated badly. Admittedly this would have been an excellent propaganda film for the US at the time, but in today’s light it just seems very jingoistic and leaves a cloying taste in the mouth of back-slapping Americana.

Kill That Zero is a very interesting documentary on what it was like to fly a carrier-based F6F Hellcat against the Japanese ‘Zero’ planes. The planes the US used initially were F4F and were helpless against the manouverability of the Zeros. The film depicts the construction of the new technology, its test and eventual execution against the Japanese warplanes. This has a more detached, documentary feel about it – as though the events are being explained, rather than telling one side of the story. However there is a definite lean towards US, but I found it to be better than December 7, 1941.

Kimikaze is a documentary detailing the preparations for the attack on Pearl Harbour and its execution. The longest documentary clocking in at just under 90 minutes is interesting in parts, but wanes in others.

Conclusion

They say that the winners of wars are the ones that write history, and this is very much the case here. This is a very interesting, but highly biased look at the attack on Pearl Harbour in 1941. Without doubt the standout feature is the main one – which is as it should be, although squeezing the rest of the war into 5 minutes of sound-bites and the same three reels of footage I believe trivialises the rest of the campaign. I suppose I’m just a little sick of seeing US films where the wars are all won by Americans and no-one else (witness Saving Private Ryan and U-571 to name two). The three extra features add value to this DVD, but you’re going to have to be a real Pearl Harbour nut to want to sit through this again and again.