Opened my eyes

Rating: 10/10 (7 April 2013)

Recently re-watched this film. It remains truly awesome though inevitably time has changed things. I first saw this as a 17 year old, some 30+ years ago. My views on the world, war and conflict were naive and immature, informed upon by films/movies and not history or fact. The side of the good we're always good and justified, and the side of the bad the opposite. When I saw this film I did not speak for 3 days afterwards. And I was a talkative individual! It metaphorically blew my mind and I did some rapid growing up. It was almost a coming of age moment.
To see the film again reminds me of that experience more than the film itself remaining as hard hitting. Not sure in the present age this film could achieve for a teenager as it did for me. The violence, both physical and emotional, is often over represented in modern features such that the images portrayed in The Deer Hunter would not have the same impact. The truth of bipartite atrocity in conflict is well recognised. Society appreciates, though not always with sympathy, the lifelong impact of conflict on both protagonists and those left behind.
This will always be a 10 out of 10 film for me but I can appreciate why anyone under the age of 40 might fail to understand why!