Margaret Drummond: The will to survive is strong, stronger than anything.
Adrienne Pargiter: You don't hate them do you?

Margaret Drummond: No.

Adrienne Pargiter: Why not?

Margaret Drummond: I've tried, but I can't bring myself to hate people. The worse they behave, the sorrier I feel for them.
Sister Wilhelminia: [grabbing a bottle of whiskey] Well I'm a nun, not a saint!
Dr. Verstak: Sometimes God reaches down and pulls the wings off his butterflies.
Topsy Merritt: You want me to give up food and soap and God knows what else, so I can starve and sing?
Margaret Drummond: I was in China when the Japanese invaded and I think that the people they despised the most were Europeans and prisoners then women.

Adrienne Pargiter: Well that's us. All three.
Adrienne Pargiter: I happen to think it is worth risking.
Mrs. Tippler: You don't give a damn about us, this whole camp!
Rosemary Leighton-Jones: Love is like a flame, it burns and is visible to all.
Topsy Merritt: If I ever get out of this, I'll never say a word against New Jersey.

Rosemary Leighton-Jones: You'll never get out of this. None of us will ever leave Sumatra.
Mrs. Roberts: I really don't mind dying.
Captain Tanaka: So no more heroic singing from your ladies.
Colonel Hirota: The war is over. Once more we can be friends.
Colonel Hirota: I could do no more.
Officer: [dancing] You're so beautiful, Rosemary.

Rosemary Leighton-Jones: So are you.

Officer: You can't say that, can you? Men aren't... I am not beautiful.

Rosemary Leighton-Jones: Yes, you are.
Captain Tanaka: What can I say, except that attacking the enemy is a characteristic of war.

Adrienne Pargiter: The Prince Albert was full of women and children, not soldiers.

Captain Tanaka: A matter of regret.

Adrienne Pargiter: More than that. There's a Geneva Convention laying down the rules of war.

Captain Tanaka: Japan has signed no Geneva Convention. If war has began, it can only mean the time for rules has ended. The aim is to win.
[last lines]

Title Card: Allied soldiers did not arrive in Belalau, the most remote internment camp in Sumatra, for a further two weeks. The women and children were taken to Singapore and Jakarta for medical treatment. They then returned to their homelands. The vocal orchestra performed over thirty works in 1943 and 1944. It ceased when half its members died, and the remainder were too weak to continue.

Title Card: The music in this film was performed from the original scores, which survived the war. Lifelong friendships endured among the survivors of the camps, many of whom are alive today. Their reminiscences provided the inspiration for this film.

Paradise Road Quotes

Extended Reading

Paradise Road short comments

Assunta 2022-05-11 16:58:00

A woman's great escape, the soul is drawn by music
Trycia 2022-05-11 19:38:47

Cate Blanchett's US feature film debut. It opens with a panorama of the Raffles Hotel, a colonial hotel that sheds light on the film's theme. And I, who live in the same city as it, have a little more affection for this film because of this.