Insanity in the Desert

Rating: 8/10 (1 July 2006)

This is Sam Mendes third feature and it is his third incredible film.
Jarhead is not so much a war film, but rather a film about war, the gulf war. A war which was fought in the air, rather than on the ground, face to face.
The film is about how war, whether or not you kill someone, destroys the souls of young men (and women, although there is little doubt that this film concerns itself with testosterone.) It is about how aimlessness, and remoteness will send someone insane. It is about the average man who is expected to be too much, be too good, too tough, too malleable and who expected to take commands without question. It is about how wars tear families apart, destroy relationships and ultimately affect the relationships one builds in the future.
This film is full of tension. Mendes gradually raises the feeling claustrophobia and of anxiety, which is met with devastating anti-climax.
The film is aware of its place among the great American war films of the seventies, utilising an intelligent quoting of Apocalypse Now. The Young soldiers, or Jarheads, triumphantly recite the Ride of the Valkeries without any irony. Although the scene is obviously ironic. The Deer Hunter is also quoted, both films being anti-war.
Roger Deakins brilliantly emphasises the malevolence through washed out looking scenes which cry with the hint of colour. The desert, the wide expanse of nothingness is filmed so accurately so that it becomes troubling.
Gyllanhaal is brilliant, two fine performances in one year, as too is Foxx and Sarsgaard and Cooper in a small part.
Not a perfect film by any means, but a film which has important things to say, which says them articulately.