A Snapshot of Men and Women For Whom The War Never Ends

Rating: Null/10 (10 March 2003)

What is truest about this film is its protrayal of a time and place that I, a baby boomer, never knew. The idyllic and deceptive nostalgia in which I hold my youth in the 1950's is a protective device that the men and women of this story never had the luxury to use.
My Uncle would never speak of bombing Dresden. My father felt guilt for being kept from the service due to his astigmatism (which he never spoke of until his later years.) Never mind that he was a medical student and physician who never used those statuses as a reason out.

It is moronic to try to block war experiences from our lives, as did the villanous characters in this film, or like this country's shocking disregard for those returning from Vietnam ("you bums - you didn't win!")
War is a chronic disease that has infected humankind since Cain slew Abel. It is a condition that must be adjusted to, whether wars are big or small (and they go on all of the time, out of the headlines mostly, currently very much in our faces.)
This film is a snapshot in time, powerful but not preachy, showing the viewer that war, in whatever form and during whichever era, is always with us.