Hacksaw Ridge

A true hero dares to face death with nobility

After Apocalypto in 2006, Mel Gibson waited a decade before returning to the director’s chair with Hacksaw Ridge. Braveheart is proof enough of Gibson’s ability, but some critics have dismissed Hacksaw Ridge as excessively sentimental, as beautifying war. In truth, though it may seem tamer compared to films that emphasize the horror of war — The Hurt Locker, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk — when Doss first sets foot on the battlefield, Gibson stages the most harrowing, blood-soaked images in the entire film to convey the brutality of war. And that reveals his intent.

This is a film about war, and also a film about faith.

Faith is the foundation upon which our spiritual existence rests, the tool with which we balance material desire. Most people choose a faith that aligns with mainstream social values, one that makes survival easier. But if we choose a faith that deviates from the mainstream, the effort we must expend to defend it is destined to be greater, and the path will be rough and treacherous.

Were it not for risking his life under a hail of bullets to save dozens of men and becoming a universally revered hero, Doss would have been seen by others as just another oddball: a soldier who would rather go to military prison than touch a rifle. Those who did not understand him would simply dismiss this faith as cowardice.

Each person’s unique experiences shape, to some degree, our different faiths, and these varied faiths make us into different people. As a child, Doss struck his brother unconscious with a brick during a fight and then, as if receiving a divine revelation, looked up to see one of the Ten Commandments on the wall: Thou shalt not kill. Later, as a young man, he raised a gun to his drunken, abusive father, and though he never pulled the trigger, he felt the terrifying force of his own violent impulses. These experiences steeled his resolve to never touch a weapon again. The differences in our experiences make each of us, in the eyes of others, a strange creature of some kind.

It is curious, when you think about it — faith seems not quite rational, sometimes devoid of logic, yet it is precisely this incompleteness of reason that makes faith the proof of our free will. More often than not, the reasons we cling to our faith are fragile, just barely enough to convince ourselves — no one else. That is why Doss did not become a saint preaching nonviolence to the world, nor did he try to stop others from killing. “Thou shalt not kill” was a principle he set for himself, and himself alone (it also happened to be a tenet of his Seventh-day Adventist faith, though there is no contradiction). These convictions make us into people unlike others, and they allow us to feel ourselves as independent individuals, not merely cogs running on society’s predetermined program.

Afterword: Beyond Desmond Doss

Although Gibson uses the film to showcase Doss’s heroic deeds, holding fast to one’s faith has never been something one can be simply optimistic about. The film remains somewhat idealized in its portrayal of the conflict between individual conviction and collective order. We should recognize that, compared to Doss, far more people who fought to defend their faith ultimately perished or capitulated, never living to see the moment when their voice could at last be heard.

It is precisely because Doss is one of those rare individuals in whom the light of faith shone through that his story deserves to be told and retold. To face death with nobility requires the courage to place life and death entirely aside. For Doss, the battle between faith and discipline was fierce enough; life itself could only come a distant third. So when the captain asked him what he could do for this war, his answer was: I am already prepared to give my life. The captain told him: your life won’t help us win this war. But I would reply: the lives he saved — those will.