A poetic, emotional odyssey

Rating: 9/10 (2 November 2007)

A baroque tragedy portrayed in three emotionally shattering acts set against the backdrop of the Vietnam War. But it's about more than Vietnam: The Deer Hunter chronicles the effects of violence upon ALL people, not just those whom participate in it.
I will be careful not to spoil or expose the crucial elements that truly make this film greater than the sum of its parts. We are pulled delicately by both the head and the heart to not merely watch but actually experience the normal, even mundane lives of steel workers as their relationships and the story unfold in a small Pennsylvania town. And maybe it all plays slowly at first - granted the film is not densely plotted - but that's precisely the point, because it's about the people, and not anything else.
Amidst the awesome beauty of the Cascade mountains (a more than comparable filming substitution for the Appalachians) the iconic parable of the hunter poetically emerges, unifying the narrative and the roles these men play in each other's lives, and in the world.
Then Vietnam. Three go in, and are irrevocably changed by 24 hours at a riverside POW camp...and you will be too. You will never be the same after these few scenes. This is by far the most psychologically intense sequence I have ever seen played out on film.
Back home in small town PA the effect is much the same. The cold of late fall underscored by a haunting virtuoso guitar solo encapsulates the loss of innocence and the guilt of living in a world that seems broken. Relationships bloom and wither out of season, and again the hunter, the deer, and the bullet find solace and unexpected reckoning with one another.
As the story again shifts to Vietnam, we discover that true insanity is not war or violence, but fulfilling a promise of love in the face of it. Beginning with a wedding and ending with a funeral, you will be devastated by The Deer Hunter.
It has been said that the movie is about many things: war, patriotism, violence, friendship, Nixon, religion...far too many topics to list here. And even if it is about any or all of those things, what makes this picture overwhelmingly moving and disturbing is the fabric of love woven through every frame. Although lauded by many technical awards, many of the more superficial, aesthetic characteristics such as cinematography, editing, and sound dubbing are either hit or miss (usually in equal shares). But this movie excels far above and beyond almost every other film made in the past 50 years solely by the strength of the material and the powerful performances. DeNiro for once is simply life-like (as opposed to typically being larger-than-life). Streep is complex and yet pleasantly provincial in this her second film. Walken transforms from a character into a person...and through all of it, we can't help living inside their skin for three hours, because we all know people just like them...we ARE just like them.