Unbroken

Grace Pinkus 

December 11th, 2019 

Cinema Movie Review

Muench 

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For my second top 100 movie review, I decided to choose Angelina Jolie’s, Unbroken. The movie stars Jack O’Connell as Louis Zamperini, the US Olympic athlete whose career was cut short when he joined World War II as a bombardier. On a rescue mission for squad members that are missing, Zamperini and his crew aboard an aircraft that fails mid flight and crashes into the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Only Zamperini and two other men survive long enough to make it on the raft. After 47 long days of struggling from hunger, dehydration, and heat exhaustion, the men are found and taken by a Japanese warship. The film follows Zamperini as he is tortured for answers, beaten, and forced into hard labor in Prisoner of War Camps. When faced with horrible, life threatening conditions, Zamperini finds the strength inside of himself to remain truly unbroken. The film opens with a powerful scene of aerial combat that highlights the cinematic strengths that take place throughout the rest of the movie. My favorite scenes from the movie were when the three men were stranded together on one life boat. I thought Jolie did such an amazing job of creating a feeling of disparity through the character's appearances. As the film goes on the men begin to look more and more unhealthy. The attention to detail is what really made these scenes so remarkable to me. One aspect of the movie that I didn’t love was how it was almost too-staged in other scenes. I found myself being pulled out of the film in the second half of it because the scenes felt too perfect for a war camp in 1945. The men always had movie-star makeup and movie-star hair while they were meant to be playing men that did not have access to showers. Everything felt accurate in the setting and how the scenes were staged, however it didn't feel as genuine as it should have. On the other hand, one thing that I really like about this film was how the storyline was presented. It opens with a combat scene of WWII, but throughout the film it shifts from present-time to Zamerperini’s childhood and his journey to the olympics. It was astounding to me how well they casted the young version of Zamperini and how similar the two actors are. Overall I thought that Jolie did a great job with lighting, music choices, and shot choices. With this being my second year taking cinematography, I have started to realize how big of an impact what I’ve learned has had on the way I watch films. I have noticed that I view films different now that I’m watching with a critical eye and searching for things I’ve been taught. I would 10/10 recommend this movie for anyone that loves heart wrenching true stories. The Academy Award nominee for Best Cinematography was most definitely worthy of the nomination. I believe I learned a lot more from just analyzing this movie and I can’t wait to explore more.