The
native peoples of North American migrated from Asia some 20,000
to 30,000 years ago, bringing various customs and languages,
which in turn changed over time. Ironically, one such people,
the Navajos, played a part in defeating Japan during World
War II, a story told in Windtalkers, directed
by John Woo. When the film begins, the Marines are recruiting
Navajos, correctly believing that their unwritten language
is so obscure that they can speedily relay battlefield messages
to artillery positions in the rear without fear that the enemy
will break the code. Among the film's "codebreakers,"
as they were called in 1942, are Private Ben Yahzee (played
by Adam Beach) and Private Charlie Whitehorse (played by Roger
Willie, the only featured Navajo). Meanwhile, Corporal Joe
Enders (played by Nicholas Cage) is fighting Japanese in the
Solomon Islands in 1943. Following orders to hold his position
while his subordinates want to retreat, he is the only survivor
as the Japanese outgun his unit. Wounded and temporarily disabled,
he is shipped to Kane`ohe Marine Hospital to heal and to receive
rehabilitation. Filled with guilt, he hears voices and sees
visions of the fifteen men under his command in the fatal
battle, but nurse Rita Swelton (played by Frances O'Connor)
encourages him and falls in love with him, although he lusts
to kill more of the enemy to make up for his mistake. To his
surprise, Enders is assigned as a buddy to Yahzee, and "Ox"
Henderson (played by Christopher Slater) is Whitehorse's buddy;
the Caucasians are primarily responsible to ensure that the
Navajos do not fall into enemy hands, since they might be
tortured into divulging the code. On June 16, 1944, Enders's
Marine unit, along with the two Navajos, are ordered to take
control of Saipan, an island so strategically situated that
air bases can be used for bombing runs at Japan's main islands.
(The film was released on June 14, two days before the fifty-eighth
anniversary of the departure of the Marines from Kane`ohe
to Saipan, though much of the film was actually shot on the
island of O`ahu and none on Saipan.) The war in Windtalkers
begins where the Solomon Islands-based The
Thin Red Line (1998) left off, showing daytime
carnage interspersed with nighttime character development
dialog. The battle scenes show an extraordinarily heroic Enders,
who takes incredible risks and kills a considerable number
of the enemy, whose ineffectuality strains credulity in the
film. The story, however, is more about three personality
transformations. The first transformation is of Corporal Chick
Rogers (played by Noah Emmerich), whose Southern accent explains
his animosity toward the Navajos as derived from his father,
who used to talk about shooting Indians; in time, when his
life is saved by Whitehorse, he shows them respect. The second
transformation is of Yahzee, who is shell-shocked in his first
battle but becomes bloodthirsty after Whitehorse dies in a
grenade launched by Enders when Japanese were trying to capture
him as a hostage to learn about the code. The third transformation
is of Enders. After his unsuccessful tour of duty in the Solomons,
he becomes grumpy and introspective, even ignoring Rita's
love letters, but in time he bares his soul to Yahzee as he
gains respect for the human and warrior qualities of his Navajo
buddy. Titles at the end credit the Navajo code, which was
never broken, with considerable importance in the victory
against Japan. However, if filmviewers somehow infer that
the theme of film is that the Marines amicably brought the
races together during World War II, the fact is that there
are no African American Marines in the cast; the armed forces
were entirely segregated except for a few special units, and
there were doubtless many more bigots in the Marines than
Chick. Although Windtalkers was originally scheduled
for release at the end of 2001, the film's theme that diverse
kinds of Americans can unite together against a common enemy
is clearly a post-9/11 message that filmviewers have seen
earlier this year in Hart's
War and We
Were Soldiers. MH
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