The Darkness of the Heart

Rating: Null/10 (13 September 2004)

There are about 10 films ever made that leave indelible images branded into your brain, and this is one of them. Those who comment that the film ranges beyond war into the nature of human beings are on target. The film, like the book, spirals farther and deeper, down into the hot center of the degenerate human heart. Yes, it's a slow, crawling sensation, and like many artists before them, Conrad and Coppola use a river as the symbol of the life's journey we are all floating on, like it or not, as the riverbanks gliding by present ever-changing conflicts. The mad young surfer--the only survivor besides Willard--is yet another version of all the demented or alienated characters in literature who see the truth realized--the Seer in Greek tragedies, the cabin boy in Moby Dick, Jim in Huck Finn, the Pilot's Boy in Rime of the Ancient Mariner, the jesters in Shakespeare's dramas. In never-ending cycles of trauma and peace, both individuals and nations are repeatedly mired in moral dilemmas that create suffering and horror, and reveal the perversity of the human heart. But the soul is never extinguished.