THE RAILWAY MAN ARCHIVE

In a scene that reverses the interrogator-interrogated roles between Lomax and Nagase, the former corrects any attempt the later makes to fudge, through euphemisms, the events of the past. The Railway Man portrays Nagase as reluctant to confront the horrors of the war. These moments pack a powerful punch, but so extraordinary is the real story of Lomax and Nagase that it dwarfs the merits of the film. The scene is set for revenge, as you might expect, and yet Lomax’s ultimate response is one of startling forgiveness that enables him to reconcile with his former interrogator. The role of Lomax as troubled veteran well suits Colin Firth who has cornered the market on playing stitched-up gents whose taciturn exteriors belie the torment raging within (see A Single Man, The King’s Speech, even his portrayal of Darcy in Pride and Prejudice.) Once Lomax discovers that Nagase is alive and showing tourists around the site of his former misery, he travels to Thailand to confront his enemy a half-century after the war. His late-in-life romance with Patti (Nicole Kidman) is hijacked by trauma that manifests in violent rages as well as determined silences that freeze out her gentle enquiries. While Lomax wasn’t imprisoned for the 27 years that Mandela was incarcerated, The Railway Man makes clear that his wartime experience has held him captive long after the end of hostilities.

His hate burns against Takashi Nagase (played by Tanroh Ishida in the past and Hiroyuki Sanada in the present), the army interpreter who becomes a figurehead for the torture Lomax endures. In response the Kempeitai interrogate and imprison Lomax, who manages to survive despite the terrible treatment. It doesn’t help that Lomax, a self-described “railway enthusiast”, was also mapping the progression of the railway in vain hopes of passing on this intelligence to Allied forces. Lomax comes to the attention of the Kempeitai, the Japanese military police, after they discover the makeshift radio he built to keep track of the war. The construction of the ‘death railway’, as it came to be known, was a titanic endeavour that stretched for over 400km through rock and tropical jungle that the men had to carve out with nothing but hand tools and in sweltering conditions where dysentery, disease, and malnutrition were rife. After the fall of Singapore in 1942, where Lomax (played by Jeremy Irvine) was serving as a British Signals Officer, Lomax as well as some 60,000 other Allied soldiers, and as many as 300,000 Asian labourers, were used as slave labour to build the Burma-Thai Railway that would keep the Japanese army supplied. Given recent commemorative efforts paying tribute to Mandela’s life, his story is likely better known than that of Lomax.

The stories of Mandela and Eric Lomax, upon whose 1995 autobiography the film is based, share excruciating experiences of decades-long suffering as well as awe-inspiring moves to extend grace and forbearance to their former enemies when primal human impulse would seek retaliation instead. With the passing away of Nelson Mandela in late 2013, and Colin Firth’s new film The Railway Man now in cinemas, matters of forgiveness and reconciliation are in the public eye. Bites on the Bible Open submenu Close submenu.Big Questions Open submenu Close submenu.Human Dignity Open submenu Close submenu.For the Love of God Open submenu Close submenu.Youth & Schools Resources Open submenu Close submenu.

THE RAILWAY MAN ARCHIVE

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The railway man