Excellent Vietnam War film

Rating: 10/10 (8 October 2011)

The film's opening scene alone is worth the price of the DVD - the haunting image of helicopters flying low over a jungle that is suddenly engulfed by an explosion of napalm is not easily forgotten, but Coppola's real genius lies in the the overlaying of a soundtrack that immediately evokes the time and place of these events - The Door's The End (surely the epitome of 60's psychedelia) providing a drugged-up anaesthetic to the violence of the images on the screen.
Based on Joseph Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness, Apocalypse Now follows an American soldier travelling upriver into the depths of a Vietnamese tribal culture which seems to become more and more savage. Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) is sent on a confidential mission by the US army to eliminate Colonel Walter Kurtz (Marlon Brando). Kurtz, once one of the finest officers the army had seen, has apparently lost all sense of reality and has gathered his own private Vietnamese army deep in the jungle.
Early in Willard's mission we witness one of film's most powerful scenes; an attack by US helicopter gunships on a Vietnamese village. We see the simple way of life in the village as the helicopters appear on the horizon, with their on-board loudspeakers blasting out Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries. Robert Duvall's psychopathic US officer gives remorseless orders to gun down the women and blow up the bridges. This scene is starkly real yet magnificent to watch, and leaves a lasting impression on the viewer. Few films have portrayed the chaos and randomness of war so clearly or so shockingly.
As Willard progresses further up the river the film becomes more and more surreal and foreboding, and we begin to realise that Kurtz has experienced something which has led to his 'madness'. This all becomes apparent in the philosophical, spaced-out ending in which Willard finally finds Kurtz's jungle sanctuary.
Apocalypse Now should not be seen as an overview of the Vietnam War; it is instead a film about one man's journey into darkness, and about the people he meets and the events he witnesses on the way. There are no heroes in this film – just ordinary (and not so ordinary) people trying to survive the best way they can. It recognises that each soldier is different and that each has a story: one young soldier is shown dying while a letter from his mother is read aloud, another soldier screams hysterically as he forced to get off a helicopter and go into war, while Robert Duvall's character famously describes his love of 'the smell of napalm in the morning'. While the viewer is left in no doubt as to the horrors of war, Coppola does not set out to create a sentimental account of 'war being hell'.
While immersed in the breathtaking sound and visuals I have to pinch myself to remember that this film was made in the 70s. It is still as technically spectacular as any film I have ever seen. Ignore the hype surrounding the gimmick of 3D; the realness of the visuals in Apocalypse Now has a far stronger effect. The film is one of the most important and pioneering in history; without it the modern war film would be very different.
It seems a pity that every film more than a few months old is confined to the small screen. Is cinema not the ultimate way to view a film? Imagine only being able to read books or listen to songs released in 2011. There are dozens of forgotten films screaming out for a re-release, from Once Upon a Time in the West to Blade Runner. The magic of acting legends and veteran directors should be seen the way it was meant to be seen. Do not miss the re-release of Apocalypse Now for the world.