It is a fact of history that the prisoner’s progress and the pilgrim’s progress can be synonymous. We think perhaps of the witness of famous prisoners, such as Boethius or Solzhenitsyn. The former wrote The Consolation of Philosophy while imprisoned and awaiting execution, bequeathing one of the classics of Christendom to future generations. His final work, and his final words before his death, have consoled countless suffering souls with the wisdom of Lady Philosophy, much as she had comforted him in his darkest hour.
Moving from the darkness of the sixth century to the darkness of the last century, the heroic example of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in the face of communist tyranny continues to inspire those who seek such heroism in our own day in the ongoing struggle against secular fundamentalist attacks on political and religious liberty. For Solzhenitsyn, as for Boethius, it took imprisonment to bring him closer to an understanding of the truth and the goodness and beauty that truth unlocks. This is why he described his imprisonment as a “defining moment” of his life, crucial “because it allowed me to understand Soviet reality in its entirety and not merely the one-sided view I had of it previous to the arrest”.
The chapter of my biography, Solzhenitsyn: A Soul in Exile, which culminated in his arrest was entitled “Arrested Development”, a punningly paradoxical reference to the necessity of the arrest to his spiritual development. I wrote that the “tragic end” of Solzhenitsyn’s military career was really only the beginning: “It was the crucifixion preceding the resurrection, labour pains preceding birth. The arrest was the real beginning of the Passion Play of Solzhenitsyn’s life, in which the pride and selfishness of his former self were stripped away like unwanted garments.” The two following chapters, “Hell into Purgatory” and “Profit from Loss”, covering the years that Solzhenitsyn spent in the Soviet prison system, continue this paradoxical theme of suffering being a necessary prerequisite for spiritual progress.
Such thoughts were in my mind as I watched To End All Wars (2001), a film starring Kiefer Sutherland set in a Japanese prisoner of war labour camp during the building of the infamous Burma Railway during World War Two. For those who might not know, the Burma Railway, also known as the Death Railway, was built by the Japanese using the slave labour of abducted local civilians and also the forced labour of Allied prisoners of war. By the time of the railway’s completion in 1943, more than 90,000 civilians and around 12,000 Allied soldiers had died during its construction, being worked to death while malnourished and suffering from sundry diseases.
The most famous film about the building of the Burma Railway is The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), which was directed by David Lean and had an all-star cast including Alec Guinness and William Holden. To End All Wars, on the other hand, is largely unknown, which is a true travesty of justice indicative of a tragic neglect of its merits. Whereas the former film was the highest-grossing film of 1957, winning seven Academy Awards (including Best Picture) and is considered one of the greatest films ever made, the post-production of To End All Wars was delayed due to a lack of funding and was largely ignored by the critics following its eventual release.
Another major difference between the two films is that the Hollywood blockbuster was based on a work of fiction, a novel by Pierre Boulle, whereas To End All Wars is based on a true story, the autobiography of Ernest Gordon, originally published as Through the Valley of the Kwai and subsequently as The Miracle on the River Kwai. As the latter title might suggest, Ernest Gordon was a committed Christian who would become the Presbyterian Dean of the Princeton University Chapel. The film adaption of his experiences as a Japanese prisoner of war reflects and respects Gordon’s Christianity, which probably accounts for the lukewarm or negative reaction of the critics.
Having seen both films, it is the view of this particular critic that To End All Wars stands shoulder to shoulder with the better-known Bridge On the River Kwai as a work of cinematic art, albeit on a somewhat lower budget, and that it supersedes it in terms of the psychological and philosophical depths it plumbs. Both films highlight the barbarism of the Japanese guards and the suffering of their victims but the manner in which the victims respond to the suffering varies greatly.
The main psychological focus of The Bridge On the River Kwai is the obsessive nature of Colonel Nicholson (played by Alec Guinness), who becomes so personally and creatively involved with the construction of the bridge that he places his desire for its completion over his loyalty to either his men or his country. In his obsession, he becomes a collaborator with the enemy and the betrayer of his friends in the pursuit of his “art”. This is indeed an interesting and intriguing psychological conundrum, an intellectually entertaining enigma, but it pales into insignificance beside the manner in which suffering and the response to suffering are handled in To End All Wars.
There is no escape from suffering for the prisoners. Each is worked to death or near to death; each faces debilitating disease, either personally or in witnessing it in those close to them, suffering vicariously. All are on the figurative rack. All are being crucified. Each suffers but each differs in their response to it. Some become self-serving cynics, collaborating with the enemy and betraying their friends in pursuit of the most meagre of creature comforts; some simply despair; but some find hope and the courage which is the fruit of hope. They find it through faith. It is the Christian prisoners who witness to the power of goodness, truth and beauty in the midst of such wickedness, falsehood and ugliness. Intriguingly, they do so by recourse to the Great Books of Western civilization. They are consoled by philosophy, discussing Plato’s Republic and its conception of justice; they are consoled by the Christian humanism of Shakespeare. In returning to the humanities, they find their own humanity affirmed. In studying the humane arts, they become more humane, not merely in their relationship with each other but in their forgiveness of those who are persecuting them. They even offer inklings through their witness, even unto death in some cases, of the meaning of humanity to the most inhumane of their captors.
In watching this film, it is easy to see parallels with Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s novella, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, itself one of the Great Books of Western civilization. The novella, like the film, is based upon a true story. Like Ernest Gordon, Solzhenitsyn had experienced imprisonment in a labour camp, albeit that he was a prisoner of Soviet tyranny and cruelty. In the novella, the silent faith and fortitude, and the hopeful witness, of the Christian prisoner, Alyosha the Baptist, is an inspiration. He knows how to survive the camps because his eyes are not on the temporary hell that surrounds him but on the heaven that is promised him. It is in the light of heaven that suffering ceases to be a hell and becomes purgatorial. It is only in the light of the resurrection that the cross makes any sense. It is only in this light that those who suffer, we who suffer, can take up our crosses, and it is only in this light that our crosses can become light, in both senses of the words. They are light by the light of Christ and by that light can become a light to others.
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The featured image is “A Prisoner of the State” (1874) by Eastman Johnson, and is in the public domain, courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons.
