War's Reach Greater Than We May Realize

Rating: 10/10 (8 February 2004)

The Deer Hunter may be the definitive movie about how war affects people. It achieves this result by focusing on the hometown of those who go to Vietnam, and those in their lives.
Many movies do a better job of showing how war affects the soldiers who have to endure it, or how the spouses and girlfriends are affected. Like so many, however, I've never experienced war or been a soldier. The impact of war to me, like so many others, was measured by deaths and injuries, and soldiers coming back intact seemed largely unaffected and prepared to resume the lives they left behind. Until I saw The Deer Hunter, that is.
I learned that war's impact on soldiers is not only physical, but mental and emotional, and that war's reach extends not only to those that participate but, in varying degrees, to all those in their lives.
I strongly recommend Deer Hunter as a movie that will sensitize the viewer to the breadth of war's reach.