A Peek into the Heart of Darkness

Rating: 8/10 (19 March 2002)

I actually went and saw the movie again (had seen it a long time ago when I was too young to make up a valid opinion) because I read Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, the inspiration for the film.
The film is good and of course criticizing the movie for not following the book would be missing the point as we're not dealing with a film adaptation. What struck me was how deeper and more terrible the book was, being a clearer look into the minds of darkness, thus getting it's point better across.
There are points the movie gets very well across, such as how alien everything is to the young American servicemen and how different their war is to the war the Viet Cong fight. Maybe Coppola is just trying to get too much across in the movie. It sometimes feels a bit schizophrenic, switching from realism(?) to almost absurdity with people tripping over to madness in one act. Of course, there are valid stylistic/artistic reasons for doing that but I'm not thoroughly convinced straight after seeing the movie.
Still, the movie is for the most parts visually well made, even stunning at time, and the story is interesting enough. Brando is very good as Kurtz.