‘Sometime the Hating Has to Stop’: Liberation and Reconciliation in The Railway Man (Teplitzky, 2013)

Abstract

The Railway Man (Teplitzky, 2013) recreates the experience of Eric Lomax, a Far East Prisoner of War (FEPOW) who was brutally interrogated by the Japanese but later reconciled with his captor, the interpreter Nagase Takashi. Adapted from Lomax’ autobiography, the film was produced in the context of on-going debates regarding Anglo-Japanese reconciliation and the absence of a formal Japanese apology for their treatment of FEPOWs. The adaptation departs from Lomax’ autobiography, and omits the support groups and initiatives to commemorate the FEPOW experience, to present the FEPOWs as a ‘forgotten army’. In addition, the adaptation includes a fictional collective of marginalized FEPOWs in England and a memorial museum in Kanchanaburi at the site where Lomax was tortured and where Nagase works following the war. While framing the FEPOWs as ‘forgotten’, the adaptation simultaneously suggests they are ‘remembered’ in Kanchanaburi and privileges the museum as a space of remembrance in which reconciliation between the pair can be achieved. However, this space also evokes the controversies surrounding actual memorial sites which have been criticized for marginalizing issues of Japanese culpability. These contradictions and resonances illustrate that The Railway Man adaptation is indicative of the very complexities regarding reconciliation it seeks to manage.

KEYWORDS:

• biopic
• adaptation
• The Railway Man
• trauma
• autobiography
• war

Notes on contributor

Matthew Robinson received his PhD from the University of the West of England in 2016. His main research interest is the British biopic. He is an associate lecturer in media at the University of Derby. Email: [email protected]