I'd heard terrible things about
when it came out, so I never saw it, despite the fact that Terrence Malick's
is a film I can watch again and again.
Forget all the bad reviews of The Thin Red Line. It's magnificent. I was distraught enough during the battle scenes to feel physically ill; they succeed in putting the viewer uncomfortably close to the action. I was powerfully moved by the odd metaphysical voice-overs lifted from the novel (at one point the camera pans across a section of sunlit Guadalcanal jungle as a soldier muses "Who are you to exist in such forms?"). Yes, many of the characters are "types" seen in other war movies, but these "types" exist; here, they're exceptionally well-played and unusually well-rounded. Nick Nolte's tormented officer, Woody Harrelson's hambone hero, Sean Penn's gritty sargeant--Elias Koteas, James Caviezel, George Clooney, Adrian Brody, etc. Casts don't get much better than this. Directors don't either. A shattering meditation on war and the human condition. Does our animal nature excuse the abominations we unleash on each other? Or are we failing to participate in the true beauty of the world while fighting? Is it long? Yes. Are there lulls featuring tropical vistas and National Geographic scenery with voiceovers by agonized souls? Yes. Does Malick cram in a lot of the ponderous philosophizing of Jones' book (without the obsession with soldierly buttfucking)? Yes. And I love it.
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