A Superb Piece of Filmmaking

Rating: 10/10 (12 November 2016)

"The Deer Hunter" is a superb film with great emotional prowess and courage. It is a story of three friends in a rural town and their lives, from wedding to funeral, and the impact the Vietnam war had on them.
For proof that Robert De Niro is one of the greatest actors of his generation, look no further than the Russian roulette scene in this film. This scene is terrifying, gut-wrenching, and magnificently acted. Very rarely in film do you see the kind of emotional power that De Niro brings in this scene. His hatred towards these soldiers who kidnapped him are real, so real, in fact, that it makes you forget that these are all just actors.
The film realizes that to make a great war film, you do not focus on the war but the characters. The characters are who we connect with through the chaos. I suppose most war films are about pushing regular people to their limits, whether it be physically or emotionally. The Deer Hunter is so great because it does not go right into the action. It takes its time to set up the characters and setting so that when they are thrown into Vietnam, we understand who they really are, not just some soldiers. They are real people with real lives and real friends and real homes. This makes everything that happens on the battlefield more emotionally impactful.
The way the film's world is perceived is a very interesting aspect of the movie. In the film, we view the world completely from the characters' perspective. We get to see the world exactly as our characters do. We see nothing of any other place besides their little town until, of course, they are taken into the war. It's an extremely smart choice. The exclusion of any place other than their small Pennsylvania town really brings us into the characters' lives. And when they are dropped off into the unfamiliar, unforgiving land of Vietnam, there is no smooth transition. We are brought there without any preparation or warning, just like the characters in the film.
One of my favorite things about film in general is that it can be interpreted in so many ways. When Robert De Niro's character gets back from Vietnam, he still wears his uniform wherever he goes. You could think that this means that he hasn't really come back from the war, he's still there emotionally. Or maybe you could just interpret it as him being proud of serving his country. Or you could think of it as him feeling like he has nothing left. No matter how you interpret it, there's no right or wrong.
If I had to point out some kind of flaw, it'd be that the pacing is a little off at times. What I mean by that is at some points the film feels boring, like nothing is really going on. Perhaps that's just because of its age, but the film is 3 hours long, a very long run time even by 1978 standards.
In the end, "The Deer Hunter" more than deserved its 5 Oscar wins. Its performances are real, gritty, and emotionally powerful. A film that I would highly recommend, it is a masterpiece of filmmaking.