Malick As Cinematic Storyteller

Rating: 10/10 (31 December 1998)

Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line is not so much a war movie as it is a nature film, featuring a wider-than-usual variety of wildlife. Current reviews understandably cannot resist the urge to compare it to Saving Private Ryan. Rather than thinking of it as the second major film this year set in World War II, I think it is more appropriate to see it as Terrence Malick's third film. It follows Badlands and Days of Heaven in the way that Casino followed Goodfellas and The Age of Innocence.
The Thin Red Line continues the storytelling style of his first two films, and it is every frame a Terrence Malick picture. Malick favors sights, sounds and music over words. He uses composition more than cutting and lighting more than action. He favors, in particular, low-angle side- and front-lighting, and all forms of light diffusion. In this film, as in his others, the pictures not only tell the story, they really are the story. As with 2001: A Space Odyssey, the words are barely captions to the pictures.
If you're looking for an action film, skip it. (The trailer is misleading.) If you're looking for a feel-good film, this is not it. If you didn't like Days of Heaven, you probably won't like this one either. If, however, you'd like to see a film that is completely, stunningly cinematic, you could not do better than The Thin Red Line. I found it spellbinding.