‘Paradise Road’

* I just read “Atrocities Revisited Through a PC Filter,” by Sheila K. Johnson (Commentary, April 30). Johnson has missed the point of this film. I did not go to see it because I subscribe to the opinion that the Japanese are “torturers and barbarians,” as Johnson would like to think, but because I am proud of my gender and how we have survived all of mankind’s wars.

Yes, it does show some of the atrocities of war in the Pacific, but “Paradise Road” is not about the Japanese. It is about the bonding of the female spirit to survive torture, starvation and personal degradation through passive resistance. It is also about what happens to people in war who would otherwise be considered good and kind. It is a movie about women and this is a rarity in Hollywood. I found it appalling that Johnson writes about a film that she has yet to see.

ROBIN LEIGH MACKENZIE