A philosophical movie

Rating: Null/10 (22 January 2001)

It's difficult to define why Terrence Malick's picture touched me so deeply. You can say, at first approach, it's a great gallery of human psychologies, it tries to let emerge from war's destruction and violence the basic questions about each man's destiny and the non-sense of death, the non-sense of every war in every time. You could say superb actors' performances, great cinematography, brilliant screenplay, excellent direction. That's not the real point about this movie.
The real focus is: what does anyone look for, finding himself in front of death? A sense to his life. A deep sense I mean, a non-political, non-ideological one, neither conformist. Every soldier feels the primitive force of life arising from all this horror and waste. Someone escapes into ancient memories of happiness and love, as Private Jack Bell. Most of them choose a pragmatic, individualist, fundamentally nihilistic solution: save yourself. But they, as well-represented by Sean Penn's character, don't believe either in this vision of things. In facts, they help each other against all: here is the true sense of their lives, their humanity. One of them goes beyond, searching for an enlightenment, a fair comprehension of the all. He found it living among Solomon islands natives, in a sort of Eden, next to the core of life. So he is not frightened when the enemy surrounds him alone and he knows he's going to die. He doesn't cry for his lost paradise. He saw the rays of the divine, he watched the other world, he touched pride and wonder of life, in a word he saw God. Nature, mother and step-mother, calls back her sons into her breast, and is new and old together: from the dead body a plant grows.