More than a war movie, The Thin Red Line ponders on our gift of Earthly paradise and how we destroy it -- and ourselves -- with violence.

Rating: 9/10 (26 December 1998)

Reading Janet Maslin's and Mr. Showbiz's reviews of Terrence Malick's brilliant, haunting new film "The Thin Red Line", it would seem that the point is missed. Where Malick shows us the horror of war, the conflict that seems inevitable in human culture, and the wondrous beauty of our world which we so recklessly, violently destroy, the reviewers are already spinning it as a confusing bit of idiosyncratic work from a reclusive director. At the same time, the Hollywood studio marketing machines are hawking it as a charged-up gore-fest, akin to a dehumanized "Saving Private Ryan." I fear that this may overshadow what Malick has accomplished with his film.
Malick, to his credit, denies the public the adreneline shot they usually get from war films. In most films' battle scenes, even the sickeningly powerful "Private Ryan", we are exhilarated by the shooting and explosions -- the electric charge is an expected part of the "entertainment" experience offered by the movies. Not so in "The Thin Red Line," where the sense in battle is of sheer horror at the moment, and, on reflection, a profound pity at our inability to live peacefully. Malick achieves a chilling effect at times by muting the cacophony of battle and instead emphasizing the musical score, itself hauntingly beautiful.
What Malick has accomplished is the creation of a deeply troubling anti-war film, one which uses the excuse of the Guadalcanal invasion to meditate on humanity's propensity for conflict and its destruction of the paradise we were born into. This is not about glorious battles, important military objectives, soldiers bonding, or yet another voice saying "War is hell." Malick goes much further than that, questioning, in the poetic narratives of the film's characters, the condition of humans that drives them toward violent conflict.
A central scene of the film is Private Witt's experience as an AWOL soldier living with the Melanesian natives. At the beginning of the film we see Witt living with the natives in peace, sharing in the communal responsibilities of the near-primitive Melanesians, accepted by them, loved and loving. Soon, he is arrested for going AWOL and quickly becomes part of the landing group on Guadalcanal -- surely a journey from Heaven to Hell.
The bulk of the film is then given over to the battles fought on the island but, more importantly, on the contemplations of how war has turned men into savage beasts. Malick shows how the viciousness of battle forced men into a spiritual destruction of their relationships with other men and with Nature. At once a character in the film, Edenic Nature is reduced at times to scorched earth. As one shell-shocked character observes, "It's all about property," letting the island dirt spill from his hand -- highlighting our lost relationship with the Earth.
Later in the film, Private Witt returns to the village where he had been living. The small population is decimated, the children malnourished, and the adult men are engaged in growingly violent argument. What has happened? How did this almost utopian community of Melanesian natives, living in perfect harmony with themselves and their environment on a beautiful Pacific island, fall from grace? I believe Malick is suggesting that humans are perhaps inherently maleficent -- that war is only a short hop from peace. Indeed, it is separated only by a thin red line. Throughout the film, we hear the narratives of the soldiers questioning the insanity of the war and of their condition, but until the end, we are sustained by the belief that someone, somewhere -- in this case, the natives of the Pacific islands -- can live peacefully. When Private Witt returns to the village as it suffers the nascent violent fits that his industrialized society has shown in their full glory, it is as if any hope of redemption is lost.
Malick's film is far too important to be interpreted as mere "World War II nostalgia," and far too beautifully made to be debased by chattering over its film technique or its starry cast. Malick confronts some painfully difficult questions about our society: its imbalance with Nature, its penchant for conflict, and the unshakable evil that lurks within us.