A "MELANGE" OF ALL REVIEWS

Rating: Null/10 (27 March 1999)

After twenty years of silence, the lion roars back... It seems that after long years of darkness, the sight of the sun was worth the wait. Terrence Malick returns at last with nothing less than the finest contemporary war film full of power and poetic grandeur as it follows a company of American soldiers during the brutal invasion of Guadalcanal in World War II. The exhausting fight for a key-positioned airfield that allows control over a 1000-mile radius puts the men of the Army Rifle company C-for-Charlie through hell. The horrors of war forms the soldiers into a tight-knit group, their emotions develop into bonds of love and even family. The reasons for this war get further away as the world for the men gets smaller and smaller until their fighting is for mere survival and the life of the other men with them. Malick's screenplay revolves around the inner dialogue of the men of Charlie Company as they confront their own fears and try to make sense of their disparate pasts while struggling to survive amidst the carnage whirling around them in an otherwise idyllic tropical "paradise". Aye, every man has his war...
The film's title comes from a 19th century allusion to the British Empire's infantry (red uniforms) whose small numbers managed to 'protect' the British "civilization" from the countless hordes of "savages" which the Empire ruled. Indeed, a simple title that reflects the true meaning of war, revealing the racism that sparks all wars. Considering even that war is mere defense of a civilization from barbarians, is but a proof to the fundamental paradox of war. Truly, in defending "civilization" we are sending young buds to war, coloring their white souls with satanic horrors of battle. And turning them into the very "savages" that we are trying to prevent from destroying our civilization. The cure is now but further contamination that would infest all the body...
I personally find it unbelievable to hear sort of comments degrading this masterpiece especially concerning the absence of a plot or even characters. This film does not develop characters because that is part of the message: war embraces all men and crosses all socio-political boundaries - do I really have to know anything about a character to see the senselessness in his death?. All the characters just represent one human, the flames of an only fire. Indeed, they are all just parts of our human subconscious. As for the plot, it lies hidden underneath the shroud of war as it reflects the development of man amid the bushes of brutality. It's intended to show a small slice of one part of a campaign to take a hill on one island in the Pacific during a war which lasted 6 years. Depicting the war in this way is far more realistic than an action packed extravaganza of explosions and heroism ( like Saving Private Ryan ). For the average soldier the war would have been remembered in terms of vivid images of small battles, not as any particular timeline of larger events. For the price of a few too many of Bell's memories you have the sight of a lone soldier lost in a misty haze as the occasional bullet whizzes past. Or the image of Witt's return to the village to find his heaven corrupted by the cruelties of fighting. War is finally revealed as an outplay of doom rather than a conquest for hope. The disease is diagnosed, and its deadly and contagious effects are revealed. The best sequence is the companies attack on the Japanese encampment. Whilst only five minutes long it's a frenetic episode as the camera moves in all directions. Inside huts, over corpses, alongside running troops. Its pace means we never actually see anybody killed clearly so there is no sense of loss. Until it stops and the defeated Japanese are paraded in front of us. There is no feeling of victory or pride ; shame is the only survivor. Indeed, what does war hold but shame or the loss of pride. Conqueror or Conquered, both are defeated by the concept of war...
Terrence Malick brilliantly interweaves tragic images of nature's inexorable brutality with almost spiritual views of the jungle sunshade, leaving the viewer simultaneously stunned by nature's beauty and aghast at its violence. By comparing war with natural beauty the film highlights the ridiculous extent man has gone to by ending life and destroying such beauty. This contrast reflects the fierce and brutal identity of war, destroying the Eden of yesterday. At the same time, the ebb and flow of the poetic narrative gives character to the universal themes and forces one to introspect and to contemplate the very nature of existence. The philosophical undercurrents of the film are made apparent through such vivid symbolism as the alligator, the bird, the snake, and the seed, all of which touch upon topics ranging from the inborn evil in nature to the nature of the soul, war, and God. The crocodile entering the green algae covered water symbolizes nature's savagery, the tree being choked by parasitic vines reflects Lt. Col. Tall own words 'nature is cruel', the bird being born as a soldier dies sheds light on the cycle of life for "we come from the earth and return to it", the coconut sprouting a palm on the empty beach in the last scene is a proof that after death comes birth, and that amid the waters of despair man lives on a mere speck of hope, his own palm tree...
Words fail to unmask the true beauty that surpasses the matter, reaching the ephemeral nirvana. I can but wonder what enchantment another twenty years wait holds? Maybe a supplementary bouquet of divine philosophy and an escape from the dungeons of the run-of-the-mill cliched Hollywood action-movies. Malek once again proves that the art of movie making is but magic sculpted by the wand of the enchanter...