Ever since seeing Terrence Malick's The Tree Of Life I had been eager to see what else the man could do. What kind of films does someone who takes on such an ambitious film project do?
I've never been big on war films. The setting of war and battle, aswell as medeival times are probably my two least favorite settings for any kind of film and I tend to mostly be disappointed in the films as a whole. With The Thin Red Line, that wasn't the case. Mainly because this isn't quite a war film, it lacks action packed scenes and focus more on philosophy and the people that actually fight the war instead of the war itself. It doesn't feel right to call it a critical war movie either, but that doesn't automatically imply that it is glorifying the battle of Guadalcanal, it merely puts us in the shoes of soldiers, who do what's considered right while philosphically questioning their actions.
As with The Tree Of Life, there's a sense of beauty in the way Malick portrays humans. The characters feel complex and deep, their thoughts and ideas are bold, interesting and clever. Normally I'd call Malick's characters naive for how perfectly crafted they are. You have Sean Penn's character risking his life through a hail of bullets to administer morphine to the wounded and dying medic, only to berate his superior who tells him he will make sure that Penn's character gets a medal for his actions.
There's also the countless scenes where the American soldiers win a battle against the Japanese, and the rounding up of the defeated enemies after the battle. Wounded Japanese men are crying and screaming with blood soaking their torn rags, either in pain or in fear of what's to happen to them, but the message isn't the same as when Tom Berenger's Sgt Barnes murders innocent civilians in The Platoon where I can almost visualise Oliver Stone grabbing me by the shoulders and shouting "See! War is bad!". The Thin Red Line feels much more in a grey zone, there's a humanity in both sides and the way both sides are depicted makes me think of them more as pawns in a game of chess, expendable, miserable and worthless to the true players of the game. We see a wounded Japanese soldier weeping as he is holding his dead friend while the American victors are watching, he glares at them but not with a look of hate but with desperation.
The main weakness in the film, however, lies in the directionless nature that is easy to pick up on. It's a film that was intended to be far more expansive, with an original play time of about five hours. A lot of that material was cut unfortunately, leaving several A-list actors completely, or almost completely, outside of the film leaving actors like George Clooney and Adrien Brody in an almost cameo-like roll while Gary Oldman was completely cut from the film. This directionless comes in play almost immediately after the siege on the bunker on the hill which otherwise represents almost half the three hour long film. The segment about the bunker is the most action driven part of the film which actually does get quite tense at several moments despite the characters involved not being fully fleshed out yet and with very little names to easily put to the faces in the film.
After the bunker segment we reach the more philosphical part of the film. The different surivivng characters face the consequences of their actions and meet the nature of war through an entirely different lens which leads to lots of worried contemplation over what is right and what is wrong and many other deeper themes. While it definitely is interesting, it does get a bit hard to keep track of who says what when most of it comes from the characters voices dubbed over the silent action scenes. This also leads to an unsatisfying ending which doesn't quite pack the punch that I assume it was inteded to do.
The strongest suits of The Thin Red Line are its techincal achievements. It's a visual marvel and the filmed locations are stunning. The sound is infallable and especially the soundtrack adds another dimension to the film, perfectly complementing whatever is going on on screen aswell as closing the film of with a sense of frisson and on a high note as the film segues from the soldiers into credits. Usually I find that Hans Zimmer's scores are uneventful and merely acting as a note to the viewer on how they should feel regarding certain scenes but in the case of The Thin Red Line, it blends perfectly with Malick's intentions and puts the film in a completely different perspective.
The most gripping part throughout the film for myself wasn't the sad deaths of soldiers you'd come to enjoy, or seeing the suffering wounded soldiers not being able to stomach the hardships of a war that they had no reason to fight. For me the most beautiful part was the first fifteen minutes of the film, where we follow Jim Caviezel's character as he spends time with the native village people of some foreign, exotic place. They live in harmony, and there's a sheer beauty in seeing the army guys playing around with the kids who are wearing rags if they even own that much. I'm again filled with the same feelings that Jessica Chastain's character in The Tree Of Life gave me and there's a sense of beauty and hopefulness in how the people react and treat eachother. The idea of malicious actions is completely out of the window, it doesn't exist in the altruistic and caring world that Malick paints during these fifteen minutes, all accompanied by Zimmer's magical compositions. I guess I'm wishing The Thin Red Line to have been The Tree Of Life - War Edition but maybe I'm being ridiculous.
Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line shines in several aspects, but mostly I want to credit Hans Zimmer and Malick's eye for creating a humanity that I wish I could see more of which are the key forces to The Thin Red Line for it is yet another journey through places I didn't know I could visit through a computer screen. It's a shame we most likely will never see the 5-hour long uncut version, maybe it had been a far more realized film and maybe it could have reached the qualities of The Tree Of Life and placed The Thin Red Line on the pillar towering over other contemporary war films where it may deserve to reside.
The Thin Red Line [1998]
dir. T. Malick
7
Anton Öberg Sysojev
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