Director Erik Nelson finds a way to trade in the typical war-doc toolkit for something more personal and more striking

The United States celebrated the end of World War II with Victory in Japan Day on Aug. 14, 1945, exactly 75 years before the release of “Apocalypse ’45,” Erik Nelson’s examination of the war in the Pacific in the words and film footage of the men who were there.

But as that foreboding title suggests, you wouldn’t use a word like “celebrated” to refer to “Apocalypse ’45.” The documentary is a tribute to the men who fought, but it’s also an elegy for those who were lost, and it doesn’t evade questions about the reverberations that linger from the use of the two atomic bombs that helped end the war.

In some ways, it is a film about victory, illustrated with vivid, restored footage that was shot during the war but has largely sat unseen in the National Archives since then. But more than that, it is a film about loss and sacrifice, which you hear in the voices of the two dozen former soldiers, ranging in age from their early 90s to 101, who tell the story.

It’s hard to say that any WWII film can feel fresh after decades of documentation, but “Apocalypse ’45” finds a way to trade in the typical war-doc toolkit for something more personal and more striking.

The film, which is being released in some theaters (and virtual theaters) on the Aug. 14 anniversary, will also air on the Discovery Channel on Labor Day weekend, which is closer to the Sep. 2 date on which Japan actually signed the papers to surrender unconditionally. (That surrender was announced on Aug. 15 in Japan, which was Aug. 14 in the U.S.)

Director Nelson documented World War II aerial fighting over Germany in an earlier film, “The Cold Blue,” which drew upon footage that director William Wyler had shot for his 1944 documentary “Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress.” And Nelson uses footage from another celebrated director in “Apocalypse ’45,” utilizing unseen film that John Ford shot at Pearl Harbor in the aftermath of the Japanese attack that led the U.S. to enter WWII.

But the Ford footage, which vividly shows the sad aftermath of that attack, is only a prelude to the real story told in this film. After the Pearl Harbor setup, the movie quickly jumps to 1945 — when, a title card informs us, “The Japanese knew the war was lost, but they were determined to fight to their last man, woman or child.”

That fight is the heart of “Apocalypse ’45,” which details a string of battles in the Pacific: battles for Manila, for Iwo Jima and for Okinawa, all of which were preludes to an expected assault on mainland Japan. At first, the film moves quickly, but it slows down when U.S. forces begin their extended and costly assault on the small but heavily fortified island of Iwo Jima. “All we wanted to do,” one veteran says, “was [to] leave there alive.”

(Source: https://www.thewrap.com/apocalypse-45-film-review-world-war-ii-doc-elegy-to-those-lost/ )