If I don't get it, it must be terrible!

Rating: Null/10 (1 February 1999)

After reading reviews here of this, Lost Highway, and Eraserhead, I have come to a conclusion: people assume that if they don't personally see the significance of certain elements of a movie, they must not have any meaning to begin with.
For example, people often complain about the "nature photography" of Thin Red Line. Well, then, you shouldn't bother with a Malick film, because they are filled with it. And this movie, like his others, is twice as brilliant for it.
People like to see what they expect to see. Here, they expected to see a movie about war whose thesis was "war is hell." Well, no kidding. That is what nearly EVERY war movie is about. Instead, Malick gave us a movie about the unbelievably complex relationship of war, man, and nature, in an originally complex way.
Because it is impossible to sum up individual characters (the hearty sarge, the baptist sniper) in a few words, and likewise for the movie itself (the mission is the man, but war is hell), people assume that nothing is going on. For some people, there is.
Next time, open your mind a little.