A touching, melancholic work of art

Rating: 9/10 (11 January 2020)

Watching the movie more than 40 years after its release,arms the viewer with the ability to experience the story without attaching much significance to the cultural conceptions of the Vietnam War that marred the movie back in the day.
This is, I believe, how this movie deserves to be viewed ; not as a polemical, historically accurate account of the war itself, but as a film with the greater ambition of delivering a heartrending human drama. In this regard, the tale is astoundingly successful, and the long, but unceasingly moving journey through the lives of several young people from the steel mills of Pennsylvania to the killing grounds of Vietnam and back again, brings to mind similar epics such as the immensely lauded Once Upon a Time In America.
Eerily realistic performances by the cast of early career Hollywood stars (Walken's hospital scene in particular), punctuated by the achingly beautiful score by Stanley Meyers make The Deer Hunter a timeless classic, a must-see on any movie lover's list.