Jack (Jai Koutrae) is a farmer in New South Wales, living alone with his thoughts which return with crushing inevitability to the First World War, where he was a soldier in France. The experiences he suffered there have been so traumatic to him that now, in 1944, he wants nothing to do with the Second World War that his country is fighting, for he feels that the last global conflict is something he lives with every day. However, one day he is sitting by himself on the outskirts of his land when he hears a noise, grabs his gun, whips around and sees a Japanese soldier standing there...
Broken Sun was not really the kind of war movie to set the pulse racing, more a meditation on what such battles can do to the men involved once they were meant to have left the fighting behind. To that end we were offered plenty of flashbacks to Jack's personal hell on earth, and to make matters worse for his fragile ego he wakes up to the sight of a dead comrade's ghost sitting by his bed every morning, just to rub in the fact that he cannot escape his past. The intentions of director Brad Haynes and writer Dacre Timbs, both working on their first feature, were laudable, but alas good intentions don't necessarily make for good cinema.
Certainly they captured a lyrical quaility in the Australian countryside, all golden hued and dreamy to contrast with the suppressed emotions and angst-ridden memories, and for its low budget the film achieved a lot in its visual style. It's just that it didn't half mope about, inevitable given the subject matter, but tedious for those looking for entertainment or intellectual stimulation. Even if the latter was there, the dull, grinding approach was not going to endear the film to many, and they seemed to forget that humanity not only featured the effects of this veil of tears, but the need for optimism, the reason to carry on in spite of the odds appearing against you. This lot looked as if they were about to give up the ghost.
The Japanese soldier is Masaru (Shingo Asami), and he has recently escaped from a prisoner of war camp along with some fervent comrades, all of whom are more prepared to die than spend the rest of the war locked up. Masaru can't really get behind the suicidal, insanely aggressive logic of his superior officer who is instigating the break out, but goes anyway, and ends up being practically the only one who gets away, meeting Jack in the process. The two men are understandably wary, but when the farmer sees how hungry and thirsty Masaru is, he is willing to meet him halfway while acknowledging that he is his captor. There then follows a bunch of conversations (the soldier can speak English, handily) that fit the mood, though the way that Koutrae is made up to resemble the British serial killer John Christie doesn't help matters. Sad to say, Broken Sun has its heart in the right place but doesn't translate its concerns adequately. Music by Matteo Zingales.
