Blown away!

Rating: 9/10 (16 March 2012)

This film is based on a 1906 Joseph Conrad novella titled "Heart of Darkness". I would suggest to everybody that enjoyed this movie, to read this story. It's not very long, about 80+ pages, but well worth the time. Reading the novella actually increased my enjoyment and understanding of the film. Obviously, the film is "loosely-based" on the novella. The time period, setting and circumstances were completely different in the film than in the story. Coppola, and the screenwriters, however, managed to capture one of the most important aspects of the story in the savagery that exists in the jungle and the effects it can have on the human psyche. I found Marlow's growing fascination with Kurtz in the book to be an interesting parallel to Willard's , played by Martin Sheen, fascination with the colonel. As both men travel up their respective rivers, getting ever closer actually meeting the man that inspired the admiration and obsession in both of these men, they come to start to understand the reasoning's and methods to their respective Kurtz's insanity.
As Willard sets upon his journey, he encounters obvious examples of the Army's hypocrisy in their wants to remove Kurtz from his post. Was Lieutenant Colonel Kilgore's insanity more excusable than Kurtz's? From the brutality of war that he witnessed in his prior tours of Vietnam, to the savagery that plagues his current mission, he starts to see the world as Kurtz does, understanding the inner machinations of the man's mind. There is a contrast here to Conrad's Marlow, in that Willard starts out as a jaded character, and judges Kurtz from different point of view than Marlowe does. As Marlowe is just a steamboat captain that works for "The Company", his interpretation of Kurtz is different. Both, however, come to realize their own inner darkness that occupies a hidden corner in their heart. With Willard, his transformation at the end of the film after he kills Kurtz and is standing in the doorway of the temple(?), covered in mud and blood is a perfect allegory to the darkness that filled his heart.
Kurtz is the most powerful character here. As in the novella, Colonel Kurtz is a man shrouded in mystery. As Willard learns more about him, we start to see a different side of the man than the man Army Intelligence portrays. They portray him as a monster, whereas, we start to see the multi-talented, enigmatic side of Kurtz as Willard starts to learn about him. Even though he is in less than 10% of the film, much like the novella, his shadow casts a darkness over the entire jungle and his presence is felt throughout the entire movie. Marlon Brando turned in another excellent performance as the mad colonel, with his philosophical ravings and soliloquies being some of the best he's put on film. A large part of the success of the portrayal of Kurtz does definitely have to go to the film's director though. Coppola does a fantastic job of keeping Brando in shadows and Brando uses the shadows to his advantage, almost wearing the darkness like a thick blanket. He is often portraying Kurtz as hunched over, as if weighted down by the darkness in his heart. This performance left no doubt as to why Coppola would want to work with this genius again, after previously working with him on The Godfather.
This is one of the finer films in film history and certainly deserves its place as a classic piece of cinema. Both the novella and the film go to lengths to warn us of the darkness that exists in all of us, and what may be madness to most people, may just be enlightenment.
The horror... the horror...