I've said it before, I'll say it again: this is one of Spielberg's best, unjustly neglected. Perhaps it would have done better at the box office if he had made it a few years later, after Schindler's List, not before, but I don't think so. Of his three WWII movies, this one is the most unusual and the one that defies expectations the most. Based on J.G. Ballard's autobiographical novel, with a script written by Tom Stoppard, this was Spielberg using his gift of directing a child (thirteen-years-old Christian Bale in his first big screen role, aging from eleven to fifteen in the movie, and the fact I had first seen him there caused me to react to the first Batman Begins photos not with mmm, Bruce, but "oh, it's little Christian all grown up *g*) - and no matter how you stand on his oeuvre, he's really one of the best of the business in getting child performances - in a way that went directly against what you expected from him up to this point. In a way, Jim is the anti-Peter Pan. This is a story about the death of innocence (as Spielberg phrased in an interview), not the preservation or triumph of it. What's more, that most beloved (and overused) of Spielbergian motifs, father-son bonding (or sons finding a father figure) is given its sharpest, most disillusioned twist (and that includes Minority Report and its noir treatment of the mentor). And that Spielbergian weakness/soft spot/however you want to put it, the upbeat (and/or) sentimental ending? Not there.

( Allow me to elaborate. )