"Nanking," an account of horrifying cruelty

"Nanking" is one of those horrifying documentaries that force an audience to look deep into the maw of inhumanity, our bottomless capacity for inflicting the cruelest possible behavior on the innocent.

Few would argue that the senseless slaughter and mass rapes that occurred in Nanking (now known as Nanjing) by Japanese troops after they invaded China in the summer of 1937 were anything short of monstrous. But the history of the so-called "Rape of Nanking" includes more than the graphic information about the sufferings imposed on an overwhelmingly civilian population.

While "Nanking" provides a blow-by-blow account of the terrible days preceding and following Japan's December entrance into the city — at that time, capital of the Republic of China — it also tells the story of heroic efforts by some Westerners to protect as many victims as possible.

Minnie Vautrin, Bob Wilson and John Rabe are among the less-than-household names of Americans and Europeans who stuck their necks out on a daily basis to establish and maintain an informal, 2-square-mile safety zone within Nanking's city limits. While other expatriates fled alongside those locals who could afford to evacuate, Vautrin and the others chose to stay and try to temper the occupying army's indiscriminate and increasing violence.

Their observations were documented in letters and other written forms. While "Nanking" features an extraordinary amount of detailed, archival footage of the occupation, the film's greatest emotional impact comes from the immediacy of these eyewitness accounts. There are also painful, on-camera recollections by now-elderly Chinese survivors and disconcerting interviews with a few of the Japanese soldiers who were there.

Woody Harrelson, Mariel Hemingway, John Getz and other actors are cast as the outsiders who tried to help — a decision that might sound odd in a documentary, but which proves a powerful technique. Each of these performers sits in a chair and recites the original words of their characters.

Everyone is excellent: Hemingway captures Vautrin's resilience keeping marauding soldiers from the girls under her wing. Harrelson is plain-spoken as Wilson, the only surgeon to remain in Nanking. Jürgen Prochnow is compelling as Rabe, a German businessman and Nazi whose diplomacy and stature during the crisis proved crucial.

"Nanking" doesn't tell us why decency and compassion completely break down from time to time. It just tells us something terribly modern and all too familiar.

Tom Keogh: tomwkeogh@yahoo.com