STRANGE THINGS HAPPEN IN FORT McCOY
In 1909, Fort McCoy was established as an army training base. In 1942, due to a roundup after Pearl Harbor, about 300 aliens of German, and Italian, and Japanese origin were temporarily interned and then sent to other camps to make room in 1943 for the training of some 4,000 Japanese Americans from Hawai‛i who had volunteered to fight in the newly organized 100th Regiment. After the Japanese Americans soldiers were transferred to Fort Shelby, Mississippi, and on onward to North Africa, the fort became a prisoner-of-war camp for Germans and Japanese captured during the war. In May 1944, on the eve of the Normandy Invasion, the Stirn family entered the compound. Frank Stirn (played by Eric Stoltz), a barber who was classified 4F for a heart murmur, is assigned to cut hair of those at the camp, while his wife Ruby (Kate Connor) serves as a telephone operator, leaving their 9-year-old daughter (Gara Lonning) and 6-year-old son (Marty Backstrand) to enjoy the adventure. Ruby’s 18-year-old sister Anna Gertie (Lyndsy Fonseca) comes along and is assigned desk work. Although the nonfiction book Stalag Wisconsin (2002) recounts how the Germans impressed the local population, Fort McCoy is not that story. Instead, each member of the family copes in a different way. Mr. Stirn regrets that he could not fight. Mrs. Stirn regrets her marriage. Anna courts and then marries Sam, a Jewish American soldier (Andy Hirsch, the film’s co-director). Gertie tries to befriend Heinrich (Josh Zabel), a German POW of the same age. Lester tries to have fun in other ways. However, the most fascinating element is how well the prisoners were treated in accordance with the Geneva Conventions despite rumors of mistreatment of Americans in German and Japanese POW camps and presence of an unrepentant Nazi at Fort McCoy. If the film was made to shame Americans over the nearly 100 Geneva Convention violations at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo, then Fort McCoy could have done more to achieve its goal. But, due to mostly stilted acting and a lackluster screenplay, the film’s purpose is elusive except as a simple biopic co-directed and written by the Kate Connor, granddaughter of Gertie Stirn. MH