an artist for the ages treats war

Rating: Null/10 (25 January 1999)

It slowly dawns on the viewer that the voices heard on screen could be his/her own. It is a leisurely explosion, from the inside out. The voices rise and fade, go from voice-overs to voices on screen (similar to the first hour of the great Wim Wender's movie "Wings of Desire") and we become part of the experience, the experience becomes part of nature, finally we are left on a beach that leaves the world, inexhorably, the way it has always been. There are no missteps in this movie, we are witness to a miracle of sorts, a movie ostensibly about war, that needs the audience to complete it. The vicariousness of even the most masterfully rendered battle scenes of most movies seems obscene when compared to the emotional palette this director utilizes to unlock our own internal existential dialogue(s). There are no easy tropes to guide us to an expected conclusion. We are confronted with the majesty and sadness that is the human experience. War is not separate from this, just a heightening and compression. In most war movies, we feel like we've been on a scary amusement park ride or witnessed a car wreck, there is very little emphathic reverbation after the credits role. In the Thin Red Line, we are led inward, our own existential questions are encountered and voiced, and meld into the voices and lives on the screen. The movie and our responses to it attain a synergy of reference and reflection that will hopefully keep the Thin Red Line from petrifying into a classic. Mallick's vision is the counter point that, while not always stated or explicitly thought, shadows all our waking moments. See the movie at your own risk.