RECOMMENDED
A 2007 Sundance premiere and a documentary Academy Award shortlist title, Bill Guttentag and Dan Sturman’s “Nanking” is heartily harrowing work, drawing on archival footage and new interviews with Chinese survivors of the Japanese invasion of the former capital of China, Nanking, at the onset of World War II. Testimony of Japanese soldiers is included, along with a staged reading of letters and diaries from westerners who protected over 200,000 Chinese in a safety zone; the actors include Woody Harrelson, Mariel Hemingway, Stephen Dorff, John Getz, Chris Mulkey and Jurgen Prochnow. Genocide is a ready topic for documentaries, but one this vivid and shattering is rare. (Producer Ted Leonsis took time off from his job as AOL vice chairman to make “Nanking.”) 90m. 35mm. (Ray Pride)
