Is it in our nature to destroy ourselves?

Rating: Null/10 (22 December 1999)

The first line of The Thin Red Line says it all: "What's this war at the heart of nature." This movie is an excellent war film, but it is much more than that -- it grapples with questions of morality, divinity, mortality, and love.
The main question of the movie (many questions in this movie but little answers, which is great -- leaves the audience to solve them) deals with the nature of war: Is it in our nature to destroy ourselves? Does nature destroy itself intentionally? ("Why does the land contend with the sea?"; "Nature is cruel, Starros, look at the way the vines twine around these trees, devouring everything.") Does nature want us to destroy ourselves through war? ("Does our ruin benefit the Earth?") Essentially the soldiers ask, "is there any purpose to the madness of war?" "If there is a higher power, and he's (or she's) truly divine, couldn't he put a stop to it, and if he doesn't maybe he has a reason, maybe there's a purpose to it -- but what?"
Another interesting question put forth by this movie deals with how humanity has separated itself into different cultures. Pvt. Witt, when he looks at the natives in New Guinea, sees a life, a peaceful life, he wants to be a part of but realizes he never can (like when he went AWOL among the natives and was later captured and made a stretcher-bearer). This is very evident when native woman he was nonchalantly talking to while he was AWOL told him she was scared of him "because he looked army."
At first he sees these people as "pure" because he thinks they don't engage in serious conflicts; he sees them as basically almost existing in a utopian society. But later, when he goes back to a native village, he realizes that they have problems, too, after seeing two native men engaging in a serious argument, a child with boils on its back, and a row of skulls in a hut. They have problems, but on a smaller scale and they're as close to nature as you get, so maybe, just maybe, the whole war is a part of nature -- but why?
"We were a family, how'd it break up and come apart so that now we're turned against each other, each standing in the other's light? How'd we lose the good that was given us, let it slip away, scattered and careless? What's keeping us from reaching out, touching the glory?"
Why can't nature be divine, why can't we be divine? How'd we separate ourselves? What's the purpose of this war?
As you can see from the previous quote, much of the dialogue in this movie sounds like poetry. This is a movie you can put in the VCR (don't get me wrong, the camera work is great) and use as background noise because the characters have so much to say, and they do so very eloquently. Unlike most war movies, which usually have a single or no narrator, pretty much every main character has something insightful to say.
I have not even scratched the surface of this movie. It has so many questions to ask and things to say. Basically, the bottom line is: If you're a teenage Rambo fan, you'll be disappointed, but if you liked Platoon and don't mind a little bit of poetry, you'll love The Thin Red Line -- and that's the bottom line.
By the way, when you first watch TRL, you'll most likely think Pvt. Witt (who is my favorite character) is the main narrator, but this is not so. In reality the most insightful of the bunch is Pvt. Train (he's the big blond guy), who will probably seem the shallowist out of all the characters on your initial viewing, but he actually asks most of the important questions about the nature of god and the nature of nature and the nature of man:
"Darkness, light, strife and love, are they the workings of one mind? The features of the same face? Oh my soul, let me be in you now, look through my eyes, at the things you made."
I really liked Saving Private Ryan, but I loved TRL -- it should have got best picture, but unfortunately it came out against stiff competition and good marketing by Speilberg.