2020-2021 Film Journal Entry #18: "Mobile Suit Gundam II: Soldiers of Sorrow"

2020-2021 Film Journal Entry #18

by Xavier E. Palacios

"Mobile Suit Gundam II: Soldiers of Sorrow"

3.5 out of 5

Directed by Yoshiyuki Tomino

Premise: In this second part of the Mobile Suit Gundam compilation trilogy, the Earth Federation starship, White Base, crewed by teenage soldiers and armed with the all-mighty mech, "Gundam", travels across Europe to support the Federation's momentous "Operation Odessa" and end the Principality of Zeon's reign over the planet. They are pursued by the cunning and noble Zeon lieutenant, Ramba Ral (voiced by Masashi Hirose), who takes no joy in his enforced mission to avenge Garma Zabi's death. Meanwhile, the familial drama between the Zeon pilot, Char Aznable (voiced by Shûichi Ikeda), and his sister, Sayla (voiced by Yô Inoue) of White Base, continues, testing their loyalties and ambitions. On their long journey to liberate Earth, the young White Base crew faces brutal battles, unfair loses, and are changed by war. Drearily long yet dramatically significant, this second film is unflinchingly, and fittingly, a relentless downer, reflecting Gundam's brilliance.

"No Rating"

My Thoughts

"Nothing good ever comes out of dying!" Kai, the cowardly, selfish, and jerky teenage refugee from Side 7 turned White Base mech pilot cries out after hearing of yet another death in this film. This line powerfully serves as the argument of this second installment of the Mobile Suit Gundam compilation trilogy. In war, dying is just dying. I initially thought the film's sub-title, Soldiers of Sorrow, was another inappropriately melodramatic anime title. I was wrong.

To a degree, there is not much to say about this film, wherein lies its weakness and impact. This second compilation film crams together episodes sixteen through thirty of the original Gundam series, featuring Ramba Ral's pursuit of White Base, the great battles of Operation Odessa against the last Zeon armies controlling Earth, the crushing Northern Ireland pitstop, and finally the assault on Jaburo, the Earth Federations' underground headquarters. Watching so much story is a numbing experience without a feeling that anything has been accomplished by tale's end. The film is similarly draining, tiresome, and constantly aggressive as a previous Film Journal entry, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me.

Yet, like the Twin Peaks film, once this picture ended, I realized such misery is exactly why the film, while maybe not enjoyable, is excellent. Stripped of a focus on its relationship, political, and war dramas, (sorely but acceptably missed), this act of Mobile Suit Gundam becomes what war is: a routine chore where people just keep dying, and nothing more. The amount of death in this film silences conversation and forces the audience to endure like the surviving character do, changing from optimistic youths into hardened young adults. While the first film brings viewers into the Gundam story in a blockbuster fashion, Soldiers of Sorrow pragmatically emphasizes the foundational reality of that installment. War is where people, from any side of a conflict, no matter their age or decency, die and keep dying.

Overall, I do not feel this film best exemplifies these represented story arcs of the Mobile Suit Gundam series, and may be one of the weaker, or least pleasant, films of this cinematic year. However, this deliberate execution of sinking the viewer into the merciless banality of war, where life is here and then lost, is astonishingly striking. While young people may have the ability to face the enforced responsibility of saving the future from the mistakes of the past generation, the cost in life to do so is so unfair.