A circumlocution that makes me wonder....

Rating: Null/10 (11 November 2001)

Sometimes I believe in solipsism. You have to at least consider it after viewing a show such as this. I don't mean solipsism as defined as total self-absorption, I'm referring to the somewhat uncomfortable feeling that one exists alone and the rest of world only lives in the mind. And in a paranoid turn I may consider the fact that I am a sort of guinea pig being manipulated by some force majeure, a la `The Truman Show'. How else can you explain such soi-disant `art' films, such as this and `Blue Velvet'? It can only be some omnipotent being whose maniacal experiment is to test the reaction of a human who witnesses a film that is uncommonly bad, only to see it incongruously praised by strategically-placed chimeras (that would be the majority of the posters here).
The `reality' of the matter is that the `Thin Red Line' is bad beyond the pale. It is a discursive mess wrapped snuggly in sweeping camera work. It is overwrought and ponderous. Its attempt to achieve surrealism is forced and achromic. And if I may be so priggish I should point out that the filmmakers fail to observe a simple rule in moviemaking by making the characters indistinguishable. Here the dramatis personae look so much alike, and are so inconspicuous we are left with a turbid jumble.
The éclat camera shots make this an ostensible `masterpiece', but the other aspects of the film reveal a convoluted, insipid work. At least that's one person's (if I really exist) view.