Kurtz Isn't Crazy

Rating: 9/10 (4 April 2003)

I think AN is a masterpiece. It joins a very selective group of films based upon novels that give artistic clarity and depth to words on the page. AN clearly shows what Conrad painfully mulls through in Heart of Darkness--the hypocrisy of Imperialism. Even though the U.S. military doesn't seek to colonize Vietnam, they do attempt to bring America to Southeast Asia, perhaps in an attempt to teach "Charlie" the value of surfing within a democratic society.
AN is full of conflict, but the most important one, I think, is Captain Willard's dilemma (which is the same as Marlow's in Heart of Darkness), his choice of a lesser of two evils: America's military policy / agenda or Kurtz's more literal vision of war. In the end, I think AN teaches us not that Kurtz is crazy, but war itself is completely insane with its rules and regulations. Willard sums up the absurdity of it all when he's trying to figure out the sense of charging Colonel Kurtz with murder: "charging a man with murder in this place is like handing out speeding tickets at the Indy 500..." says Captain Williard. And he's right, but in the end he (Coppola's Willard), who tows the party line, just like Conrad's Marlow.