I’ve recently uploaded two works (The Golden Road and Nature/Nurture) onto my website. Both works are a continuation of my ‘experiments’ with the use of image and text.

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I’ve just watched episode five of The Pacific.  As someone schooled in the dark arts of the History Channel, I am sadly aware of the major battles of the island hopping campaign and the context in which this war was one fought upon a battlefield of race hatred, on both sides.

Spielberg and Hanks, have in their own words, produced a work that - for the first time - will shine a light on a theatre of war that had been outshone by the war in Europe.  A war dislocated from the American psyche and a war where soldiers fought equally against the enemy as they did the geography and terrain of alien worlds that would soak up their blood.

But there is a sense of dislocation within this mini series.  A stop, start approach that has so far made it difficult to become emotionally attached to characters.  The battles have been strangely familiar and it’s odd to say this, but ‘unsatisfying’ as the battles have been short.  Americans shoot - and the night cloaked Japanese fall over.

The Pacific has large shoes to fill - and it is currently falling short.

It comes in the wake of A Band of Brothers; a series which perhaps captured so ‘authentically’ (according to veterans) the brutality of war in Europe.  Let’s be honest; most people who will come to The Pacific mini series will want Band of Brothers part 2.  They will come for a  safe safari ride into the dark side of humanity.  They want to momentarily live the horrors of war, within a televisual roller coaster, that shows them ‘authentic’ images of war within a ‘loop the loop’ sensationalism that they can get off on.

In that sense, The Pacific is strangely lacking - don’t be fooled by the trailer -it has not been a visceral experience, well not until episode five - which has been the most dramatic and enthralling episode to date. Episode three perhaps fleshed out Bob Leckie more, examining his emotional roller coater ride, taking him from unrequited love in Melbourne and dumping him into the urine sodden sheets of the nut house of episode 4.

But nonetheless, up to this point, there has been no aesthetic disinterestedness,  you never feel as if you are a part of the ‘battle’ and there really hasn’t been any real connection to a character.  Leckie, admittedly, so far, is the most rounded and well drawn character - but otherwise anonymous faces come and go - and come back again after you thought they were killed.

Perhaps this is a motif to dislocate and disorientate the viewer, to make them feel as the soldiers who fought this campaign felt.  But this might also be something to do with the directors of the previous four episodes. I always had the feel that I was watching a TV show - a Hallmark made presentation with an overly long opening credit sequence that you just can’t wait to end.

They have taken the huge canvas of a sprawling hate filled war to the death and turned it into small TV soap opera - in Khaki drab.  Carl Franklin has done the best job to date - and episode five will draw you in and take you on a journey within a mental amtrack onto the beaches of Peleliu -  unfortunately he has only helmed one of the ten episodes.

As the British documentary ‘Hell in the Pacific’ graphically recounted, the war in the Pacific was one of sheer brutality.  Each side considered the other racially inferior and as such meted out sheer horror on the opposing side.  One story recounts how 50 captured Japanese soldiers were tied together by American soldiers then were doused in aviation fuel before being burnt alive.  And of course the sheer horror of what the Japanese army inflicted on soldiers and civilians alike has been well documented.

Hanks has stated that he wanted to show the viewer something that they had not seen before, but whilst I am only half way through, I feel that I have seen this already countless times before.

Maybe it’s not the fault of this mini series, maybe it’s my constant exposure to the History Channel has left me slightly battle fatigued…or perhaps it’s because I live in a country that has been in a ‘real’ war in Afghanistan - for twice as long as the Marines were in the Pacific, that has taken the edge of watching actors playing soldiers.

Perhaps I just feel too guilty to get attached to the emotional arcs of these actors characters, when for eight years I have ignored the real faces of dead soldiers that smile back momentarily at me for five seconds on the news at night.

Sometime in 2075 I know a blogger will be discussing a new mini series called Afghanistan….perhaps sixty-five years into the future, where the context of history has revealed the truths that we are are yet to see, it will make more sense than it does now.  Or perhaps it will be just be the same as any other cinematic image of war, where below the lofty ideals, lurk an adrenaline fix roller coaster that ultimately promotes that which it attempts to disavows.

Whilst there are things that men can do to each other that are sobering to the soul…I know I’ll be back for episode six and back again to sit and watch men pretend to kill other men for an hour of entertainment.

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