Not really a "war" film

Rating: 10/10 (23 January 1999)

To view "The Thin Red Line" as a war film, misses the point, at least the one I got. Malick uses the backdrop of the battle for Guadalcanal as a means to examine the inherent nature of man. Unlike most viewers, I don't think he has a pie-eyed, new age theory.
We are taught from an early age that all men are created equal and the basic nature of man is good. That belief is shown in the beginning as Private Witt lives among the "peaceful natives". I didn't take these scenes literally, but as Witt's interpretation of them. Witt is a naive and simple young man. He only sees the good, the beautiful and the idyllic. When he is returned to his company, he professes a love for his fellow soldiers because they are his people.
As he, and the movie, gets deeper into battle, he/we see the other forces that work within all of us. There's desperation (Lt. Col. Tall), compassion (Capt. Staros), desire (Bell) and fear (Fife). When Witt returns to a Melanesian village, he can no longer overlook the other natural forces at work in all men. He is now able to see the conflict and strife as well as the beauty.
He is also constantly interacting with Welsh, who signifies "Everyman". Welsh is capable of heroism as well as hatred, compassion and dispassion. The two men balance one another. One is what we aspire to, the other is who we are. To survive, the characters must be able to accept both sides of their nature.
Malick also uses the nature scenes (so ridiculed in many reviews) as a metaphor for the natural forces that work within us. They are not just pretty pictures of the flora and fauna, but a visual emphasis that man does not exist separate from nature, but is an intrinsic part of it. A crocodile lazily sinks into the water. A tree is slowly being killed by the vines wrapped around it. Beauty, violence and destruction are not the creation of man, but of nature.
Was this a great, or even good, movie? In my opinion, yes, but only time will resolve that issue. This film did move me, and make me think about the images that were presented, and that's more than I can say for anything else I've seen this year.