Everyone Sees Their Own Versions of The Thin Red Line.

Rating: Null/10 (7 December 2013)

The year that was dominated by Steven Spielberg's unflinchingly realistic, highly intense & genre-defining cinema called Saving Private Ryan also saw the release of another war film from a notable filmmaker who returned to film directing after 20 years of absence. Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line may not be as graphic a depiction of war & its brutality as Spielberg's masterpiece but the manner in which it approaches its genre is far more philosophical than other films dealing with this subject usually dare to.
The Thin Red Line isn't just about war but the fear & moral complications a soldier faces in the battlefield and the film as a whole is a deeper study of war's devastating effects on not only human soul but nature as well. Loosely based on the novel of the same name, it is a fictionalized depiction of the Battle of Mount Austen on Guadalcanal between the American & Japanese soldiers during the Second World War and is told from the viewpoint of five major characters.
The direction by Terrence Malick wonderfully contrasts the ugliness of war with the beauty of nature plus the surreal imagery, visual poetry & symbolism it presents is nicely fused into its narrative. The screenplay features less dialogues related to the plot & asks more philosophical questions that aren't easy to answer. Cinematography is absolutely dazzling for there is beauty in every single frame of the film. And Hans Zimmer's score is absolutely heart-warming.
Coming to the performances, The Thin Red Line boasts an impressive cast in Jim Cavaziel, Sean Penn, Nick Nolte, Elias Koteas, Ben Chaplin & many more amongst which Cavaziel impresses the most and is the heart & soul of this film. But what still turned this film into a slight disappointment for me is its confusing plot as it's really not easy to figure out what exactly this film is about & ends up being too high-minded for everyone's taste.
On an overall scale, The Thin Red Line is an intricate human drama set in the backdrop of a war which provides Terrence Malick an ideal environment to skilfully explore the themes of fear of death, detachment from reality & search for wisdom that deserves to be seen by admirers of Malick as well as die-hard fans of art-house cinema. Worth a watch? Certainly. It's a Terrence Malick film after all.