Shellshock on celluloid

Rating: 9/10 (21 September 2002)

** Spoiler country ahead **
This film has proved to be one of the more devisive that Spielberg has made and along with Schindler's List, it's certainly the most harrowing. When I first saw this in the cinema, 95% of the audience couldn't stand up as the credits rolled. The trauma induced watching the battle scenes seemed to disconnect everyone's brain from their leg muscles. If you ever want to make anyone realise that war is not a good idea, make them watch this.
Many have said that this film doesn't have a plot. Rubbish, the plot is that 8 soldiers go off to rescue the last remaining brother of a family so that some high ranking officer doesn't have tell his mother the worst possible news without something positive to add at the end. Sorry, bit of cynicism there. It don't care if the plot is true, made up, plausible or a steaming pile of cow dung, it's still a plot. To me the number of soldiers who died in WWI to gain 100 yards of ground seems totally implausible - but it happened. In was lots of crazy things happen and sometimes the focus needs to be on the detail rather than the big picture.
I agree, the plot is something to hang this film on. It's a bit flimsy but it isn't why the film was made. I think this film, like the gravestones in Normandy, is a monument to the fallen. It's an attempt to do an honest war film. No punch pulling. No batteplans, just individual soldier's stories in one huge story there players within. To do that well you need a simple story and that's what you've got.
Now the big controversial bit. Patriotism. Yes, it's an American film made by Hollywood with American actors and money. It's about Americans at war. Maybe everyone should treat it as such. Das Boot is an excellent German war film about Germans and the number of British war films made in the later half of the 1940's about Brits does not need mentioning.
But...
The rest of world is starting to view America as a bit schizophrenic. On one hand very insular and not really wanting to interact with the world; certainly wanting to be safe from the rest of the world's problems. On the other hand American culture, values, interpretations of history, art, music are everywhere around the world. Indeed most of the world are a little bit American. That's fine as far at is goes. You don't like, you don't eat at McDonald's.
However when a brilliantly artistic and truthful film that we all want to share in fails to do this and goes all insular and US-patriotic on us, we get a little bit disappointed. Yes this film tells the truth, but it doesn't tell the whole truth. It's subtle, but it's rewriting history. That gets people's backs up and leads to tension and arguments.
The association of the universal truths with the US flag and US soldiers seems to be stealing something that we all own for an individual nation. War it a horrible thing, that men can commit the ultimate sacrafice for another man, that fighting brutalises, that the freedom to make this film was won on those beaches and fields; this film has a message for all of us, not just the US.
Films should have an affect on you, they should haunt your thoughts for days afterwards. Saving Private Ryan still haunts my thoughts over 3 years since I saw it. Please see it regardless of where you come from.