Awfully brilliant

Rating: 10/10 (3 June 2004)

Ever since I was 12, I've read hundreds of books, seen dozens of movies and did almost anything that has to do with the second world-war. For me, this period of time which changed the world forgood has also changed my life and my view on the world as it is today.
Almost 4 years into my WWII obsession, I heard about this project from the same director who made Shindler's list. Then the first screenshots... M1 carabines, MP40's and Tiger-tanks... I couldn't wait.
Sitting there, in the pitch-dark, The movie starts with the absolutely great sound's from the orchestra lead by John Williams. Seeing the old man walking towards the huge graveyard, with his family on the background, with obviously increasing emotions, the camera hides behind one of the graves, not revealing the name on it. Fade out.
What came next is almost indescribable. A group of extremely nervous American soldiers are standing in a landing-vessel, bouncing on the waves, a last walkthrough of the tactics&objectives and then the words no-one wanted to hear: 30 SECONDS!! CLEAR THE RAMPS!
Never ever had I experienced such an intense scene. I seriously totally forgot I was in a cinema. I felt like I was flying above the beach like a ghost. Absolutely uncomparable to any other scene I had ever seen.
If I go on like this, describing all scenes, i would need 225 web-pages and 2 weeks to write it down. Since I lack the time, i'll give a short summary.
From this scene on, Spielberg lets us join the march of some survivors, who are send by High command to find the youngest of 4 brothers, 3 of which died. He must and will return safely to his mother. We follow these soldiers, move with them and inside them. Encountering only some Germans (which, after Omaha itself, are all Waffen-SS which is weird, since the main force of the Waffen-SS did not join the fight until several days later). As the search for Ryan continues, so does the search for the answer to the question of questions... why do we fight? Spielberg brilliantly links the search for that answer to the actual deeds of all the individual soldiers. He shows, better than any director before, that soldiers are not blindly-orders-following-men, but individuals who are thrown into a war and fight it their own unique way.
After a both sad and hilarious mistake, they finally manage to find Ryan.. who turns out to be unwilling to return home until he completed the task he and his team were supposed to do with the few remnants of his battlegroup. That task is to defend a small bridge in a small town -the only remaining bridge in the area- until reinforcements have arrived. Captain Miller is forced to stay and help until this objective is reached.
The final battle that follows is again a masterpiece. Spielberg obviously wanted to reach the highest level of historical accuracy. Everything, from the socks they wear up to the tanks they fight, is historically correct (I must note that the Tiger-tanks are not real ones, but are in fact T-34 (russian) tanks converted to tigers- only the running gear gives this away, but hey, there are no real Tigers which move available up to today, so still great job). This final battle again shows the true horrors of war: all but 3 or 4 die.
Alltogether, the mixture of hand-held cameras and static ones, the moving characters, the music, the brilliant storyline and the breathtaking action made this movie one worth of viewing 25 times up to today -and more often to come- for me. Even for those totally uninterested in WWII: Just go and see this one, with theatre-surround of course. You most certainly will never forget it.