Greater than the sum of its parts.

Rating: 9/10 (7 November 2010)

I have seen The Deer Hunter 7 or 8 times over the years, and have grown into middle age while it's characters (and actors) remain eternally youthful, and the film always leaves me shaken and near tears. Reading some of the reviews of people who were less than impressed with it, I can see many of their objections as valid. The film is very long. The script is sometimes inchoate, incoherent, and clichéd. The pace lulls you, then yanks you forward. Some plot points are certainly in the realm of coincidence,and the ending is very ambiguous.
But the film becomes a country in your mind. The slow start allows you to know these people in the most intimate way. If the script is clumsy and clichéd, it is because the characters are small town people, not adept at tossing off bon mots, and their own experience of movies informs how they express themselves, in ways that are no less sincere for being derivative.The disjointed pacing makes the viewer struggle to follow the story, experiencing the same dislocation and alienation as the three men. And coincidence does happen in life, which is what makes life remarkable.( Charles Dickens used coincidence continuously to great effect!)
I think the Cimino's genius in this film was casting superb actors, and giving them the opportunity to breathe in these roles. He shot tons of coverage, and you have the impression that the actors lived, breathed and dreamed in character. Their commitment to the characters they inhabit bridge the gap created by a less than "perfect" screenplay--in fact it makes you feel that every second in this long, lurching movie is absolutely inevitable, totally right and completely necessary to a proper understanding of these people.In fact, the spare script is a simply a vessel that holds these burning performances, and allows the actors room to live in the film. I had the same feeling after the first time I saw this film, as I did with Manon of the Spring, that I had known these people all my life. They take up a very large place in my psyche. I love them, with all their faults and their dreams. They simply don't make films like this anymore!
As far as ambiguity is concerned, I'm comfortable with that. A friend of mine from Australia once described his view of American films:"First, they tell you what they're going to tell you, then they tell you, then they tell you what they told you." Kudos to Cimino for leaving his characters, (and us) on the razor's edge of uncertainty, after everything they believed in (except each other) has been devastated by war and loss.The tenderness the characters show each other in the final scenes of the film is transcendently beautiful and poignant, and more important than a well-formulated conclusion.There are no lessons to be learned here, just life unfolding itself in front of you. A very rare experience in cinema.