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The Thin Red Line [1999]


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Editorial
Amazon.co.uk Review

One of the cinema's great disappearing acts came to a close with the release of The Thin Red Line in late 1998. Terrence Malick, the cryptic recluse who withdrew from Hollywood visibility after the release of his visually enthralling masterpiece Days of Heaven (1978), returned to the director's chair after a 20-year coffee break. Malick's comeback vehicle is a fascinating choice: a wide-ranging adaptation of a World War II novel (filmed once before, in 1964) by James Jones. The battle for Guadalcanal Island gives Malick an opportunity to explore nothing less than the nature of life, death, God, and courage. Let that be a warning to anyone expecting a conventional war flick; Malick proves himself quite capable of mounting an exciting action sequence, but he's just as likely to meander into pure philosophical noodling--or simply let the camera contemplate the first steps of a newly born tropical bird or the sinister skulk of a crocodile. This is not especially an actors' movie--some faces go by so quickly they barely register--but the standouts are bold: Nick Nolte as a career-minded colonel, Elias Koteas as a deeply spiritual captain who tries to protect his men, Ben Chaplin as a G.I. haunted by lyrical memories of his wife. The backbone of the film is the ongoing discussion between a wry sergeant (Sean Penn) and an ethereal, almost holy private newcomer (Jim Caviezel). The picture's sprawl may be a result of Malick's method of "finding" a film during shooting and editing, and in some ways The Thin Red Line seems vaguely, intriguingly incomplete. Yet it casts a spell like almost nothing else of its time, and Malick's visionary images are a challenge and a signpost to the rest of his filmmaking generation. --Robert Horton


My Best film of all time!
Review date: 2008-09-12 Rating: 10 out of 10

Yes it is a bold statement to make but this really is the best film I have seen.

The great cast, the way it was filmed, the music, the emotion - it just has it all. Cannot fault it whatsoever.

Let's hope some day they release the full six hour version on DVD!

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Reviews


The most psychological and poetic of war movies
Review date: 2008-08-27 Rating: 10 out of 10

I can only assume that the folks who give this a low rating were looking for some straightforward blood and guts (of which there are plenty) but did not have the sensibilities required to deal with a movie which, first and foremost, is about a man determined to retain decency and a true love of humanity in circumstances where these things are all but impossible. It shows more terror than heroism, and what heroism is shown is shown in small and usually futile episodes.

Another theme explored and made clear in a way that no other war film I have seen manages, is how the pressure was applied down the chain of command, finally ending in terrifying and sometimes paralysing decisions to be made by the NCOs at the sharp end. In real war, command is ultimately about bullying ordinary people into doing terrible and incomprehensible things.

"What's this war in the heart of nature? Why does nature vie with itself?"
Review date: 2008-08-03 Rating: 8 out of 10

"What's this war in the heart of nature? Why does nature vie with itself?"

This epic movie opens with the above narration by Jim Cavaziel's character, a private in the US marines, amid scenes of apparent paradise on an island in the Pacific, whilst an extract from Gabriel Faure's Requiem floats magically above the sounds of sea, surf and native villagers going about their daily lives. A war film? Yes, for it is the comparison between this scene and the gore and bloodied desperation to come that encapsulates the films profound meditations on death and immortality.

Ten minutes into the film and we are transferred to the decks of an American warship, heading for the Japanese-held island of Guadalcanal. Below deck, private Cavaziel, having been picked up after going AWOL, is being questioned by his sergeant Sean Penn. After telling Penn that he (Cavaziel) is twice the man that Penn is, Penn significantly replies that, "In this world, a man himself is nothing", for the world is governed by greater forces, as millions of men vie for control of the planet. It could be said that the rest of the film is concerned with both the truth and the falseness of Penn's statement.

Later in the film Cavaziel will ponder whether, "Maybe all faces are the same man, one big self", that the soldiers are not killing each other, but that they are killing part of themselves. Cavaziel and Penn express their opposite after the heat of battle. Penn still maintains that one man makes no difference and there is "just this world, just this rock". But Cavaziel has the look of someone who knows this is not true, he has the smile of a prophet, the staring eyes that have seen a "beautiful light".

Meanwhile, everywhere on board ship there is palpable tension as the troops prepare their invasion of the island. Nick Nolte as a senior officer expresses inwardly his sense of degradation and his distaste at his own brown-nosing whilst outwardly agreeing with every word of his own superior, played by John Travolta. It is this ability of the director Terrence Malick to convey to the viewer the inner thoughts of the single man that makes this film so successfully human and realistic. War films are full of blood and guts, but this film focuses on the fact that those blood and guts belong to real people.

Take Ben Chaplin's character, for example. His thoughts reveal to us (in a not wholly convincing American accent) that he is so in love with his wife at home ("We flow together like water till I can't tell you from me"), so that after the hell and heroism he endures in the attack on Guadalcanal, we are just as shaken as he is when she writes to him to ask for a divorce. He later meditates on "who put this flame [of love] in us?" Cavaziel asks the corollary, for he asks where hate comes from. In his simple backwoodsman way, he concludes from all that he senses going on around him that "War don't [sic] ennoble men. Turns them into dogs. Poisons the soul."

The realism of the characters in this movie is also conveyed in the great set-pieces, such as when the landing craft sail into the shore. (Did Malick use real ones or are many of them mock-ups? The dearth of extras means we are not told.) For much of the film, the camera adopts a fly-on-the-wall approach, moving with the soldiers, for instance, as they ascend the hill of death. By this method, the camera conveys the psychology of fear, of the intense pressure that the men experience. We see the heroism; we see the cowardice; we see the desperation, the madness, the insubordination, the compassion, the confusion. To this extent this is the most real war film that you might ever see on screen.

Ninety minutes into the film and the ridge of the hill is finally taken in a fine piece of bravado. The random brutality and cruelty of war - and yes, also its humanity - is shown as the Americans rampage through a Japanese encampment in the jungle forest. After a period of R&R, the soldiers are later back in action. Cavaziel is cornered by Japanese and the look in his eyes hints at him experiencing an epiphany as he realises his end may be near. His bewilderment with the complexity and brutality of human nature causes him to wonder: "Who were you that I lived with, walked with?"

Cavaziel's is a truly humbling narration that puts all our minor day-to-day problems and issues about the price of fuel or the bad weather in the shade. This film goes beyond the telling of a story of great heroism: it is a finely-tuned reflection on life's meaning and what it means to be human. I came so close to giving it five stars, but for the lack of a denouement that would relieve the inner tensions that the film provoked in me.

The interesting soundtrack is worth a comment. As well as the Gabriel Faure and the Charles Ives and the sounds of Melanesian songs, Hans Zimmer contributes with threatening and yet re-assuring sounds of sustained rising and falling string chords, supported with insistent native percussion, leading to a stately and majestic crescendo. Alas, apart from the Melanesian songs, the film has no extras.


Immense waste of time....
Review date: 2008-06-08 Rating: 2 out of 10

The only war film I have ever turned off half way through because it was so damned boring.
There is no real excuse for a movie about the most inherently dramatic phenomenon in human society, but this was turgid and pointless and lacking any apparent plot, even for someone relatively familiar with the campaign in question.
Proof if any was needed that no matter how many big names you stick onto a turkey it remains a turkey.

Immense
Review date: 2008-05-11 Rating: 10 out of 10

I have to fully endorse the previous review. This is a beautiful, haunting, intelligent, emotional meditation about war, about men, and about how we wreak havoc on our amazing planet.

It's not a war film, but a film about war, and the effect on men's minds.

Those who have given this film a one star simply don't get it, and are probably thick. Amazing cast, amazing performances, cinematography and soundtrack.

Product Details/Specifications


Actor(s):
Adrien Brody
George Clooney
Sean Penn
Jim Caviezel
Ben Chaplin

Creators:
Sean Penn (Primary Contributor)
Adrien Brody (Primary Contributor)

Recording label: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
Manufacturer: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
EAN: 5039036003049
Binding: DVD
Number of items: 1
Format: Anamorphic, PAL, Widescreen,
Release date: 2000-06-12
Number of discs: 1
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Audience rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
Region code: 2
Running time: 166 minutes
Theatrical release date: 1999-01-08
Language: English (Original Language)
Language: English (Subtitled)
Language: Portuguese (Subtitled)
Language: Swedish (Subtitled)
Language: Danish (Subtitled)
Language: Hungarian (Subtitled)
Language: Polish (Subtitled)
Language: Icelandic (Subtitled)
Language: Finnish (Subtitled)
Language: Czech (Subtitled)

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