Winter Holidays Homework

Subject: History
Student: Nicolas Schropp
Hacksaw Ridge
Objective: Write a comment on which part of the war it refers to, from which
perspective or side (American, European, German, Japanese), what you learnt about
the war by watching this film and if you liked it or not
-Hacksaw Ridge is a very interesting and important film that in general terms it talks
about the story of a man, called Desmond Doss, who went to war without any guns. In
order to understand more about this, Desmond Thomas Doss was a United States
Army corporal who served as a combat medic with an infantry company in World War
II. The reason why he didn´t go to war with any guns, was that he didn´t want to kill
anyone, because of his personal beliefs as a Seventh-day Adventist. Also, the movie
shows as different aspects of his life, all his family traumas, relationships, etc. while
they shows us what was happening at war at that time.This movie happens on the
spring of 1945, when many important things were happening around the world, since
the war was coming to the end. To put us in perspective, first we need to know that at
this point, the soviet army was advancing into Germany form the east and the allies
were advancing from the west, they were surrounding Hitler inside Berlin. In addition,
something more related to the movie, the US also was having good movements in the
war in the pacific, since the were advancing in Japanese territory and putting them in a
very bad position. In relation with this, the movie happens in Okinawa, a prefecture
composed of more than 150 islands, which at that moment was part of the territory of
the Japanese Empire, where the US had a long and strong fight with the Japanese
army, who planned every attack using all the things that were able, since they were in
disadvantage in relation with the US army, in terms of guns, number of soldiers and
strategies. Nevertheless, they fought without fear and they resisted a lot, leaving the
US with many dead soldiers.
Apart from that, this movie is told from an American perspective of the war, since it
remarks how powerful this country is and how they can win every battle they fight.
Also because it tell us all the things that happened exclusively to them at that moment
and not what the Japanese army was felling or thinking. This is very common in
modern movies, since many of them show the US as the hero of the war, something
that in one point could be correct since they helped a lot and without them, probably
history would be different, but they were not the only ones who risked their lives in
order to save the world from the Nazis and that needs to be clear. On the other side, I
think that I didn´t learn that much with this movie, since I already know a lot of the
pacific war and before I watched the movie I had already watched a video which
explained Desmond Doss life, but a little bit more simplified. Nevertheless, it is never
bad to get more information, since some small things I didn´t know them, like for
example, that in front of WW1 veterans, majors were so respectful and grateful.
In my opinion, it was a good movie, it was very interesting and well produced, it
showed in a good way how war was at that time and how the soldiers lived at that
situation. I think that it is very important to continue producing this type of films, in
order to use as an example to not repeat this thing never again, since the war was one
of the darkest moments in history of the humanity and repeating it now could be more
destructive, since the actual advanced technology could be used for very bad things.