The Treatment of Prisoners of War as Shown in the Cinema

The condition of a war prisoner is the next worst thing to being in combat. The treatment of prisoners is one of the major concerns of the rules of war. Prisoners of war now have numerous rights conferred to them by several legal documents. However, these rights are frequently not respected. This reality is transposed from the battlefields to the cinema. War movies that deal with prisoners of war show various instances of noncompliance with the rules of war. But do they match the historical reality and legal requirements? The analysis of war movies provides different views on the enforcement of international humanitarian law. War movies can show how international humanitarian law can ease the sufferings inevitably caused by war. On the other hand, if international humanitarian law cannot give adequate protection to combatants, prisoners and civilians, the solution must be the elimination of war itself. Different moral conceptions of war are thus reflected in the images of war conveyed by film. The translation of these images and moral attitudes into legal norms is an attempt to turn them into reality, to make them capable of being enforced and shaping the actual conduct of people.