Twenty-some years later ...

Rating: 9/10 (4 May 2002)

I first saw "The Deer Hunter" when it was released, along with some grad school friends. The haunting views of the Pennsylvania steel city and the mountains, the amazing characterizations, the naivete of the people before the war and their brokenness afterward - all of these combined to create a world that left us all drained and speechless afterward. Of course, we *were* the generation who watched the Viet Nam war on the nightly news.
I never saw the movie again. There were times when I wanted to see whether it was as good as I remembered, or whether it was simply all a part of the angst of a twenty-something and the lack of film-watching experience, but never did. I wasn't sure I wanted to go there again.
It happened to be on television tonight, and I watched, 20-some years later. I now have almost 30 years of adult film-watching experience. I have seen many good movies and some truly great movies.
I now see the flaws in "The Deer Hunter" in a way I didn't when I was younger. It's not a perfect movie, not nearly.
But it's real.
And, after all these years, it still takes my breath away. As others have written, it's not a sweeping (or accurate) movie about Viet Nam. It's a movie about some people from a small town who went to war and came home scarred. And the people who stayed at home and ended up scarred, too.