The Thin Red Line Review
by "Brandon Stahl" (bgs006 AT mindspring DOT com)September 30th, 1999
The Thin Red Line
**1/2 out of four
Written and Directed by Terrence Malick
Based upon the book by James Jones
Starring:
Sean Penn
Adrien Brody
Elias Koteas
James Caviezel
Nick Nolte
Poetry, translated into a film, is The Thin Red Line. The movie is a collection of images and thoughts, assembled in a broken order, in hopes to solicit emotion and feeling from the audience. It is not so much about plot or story, but about sights and sounds, symbolism and rich lyrics, and the way a it should feel to be in a war. Malick created poetry.
The question is: Is it good or bad poetry? Unfortunately, I'm not a good enough critic to say. I didn't enjoy the movie, but that's partly because I didn't understand Malick's poetry. I have to be honest. That's not say that someone will understand Malick's visions and enjoy the experience. I didn't enjoy the film, because I didn't understand Malicks message, but I also thought that it was incredibly overlong and pretentious. What insights did I gain through his film that other war movies had already shown? None, and it took three hours to do it.
Malick uses the war as a background to introduce several American infantrymen, most of them indistinguishable from the other. It wasn't so much about keeping track of each character and their individual plight in the movie. Each character had moments where, as they were fighting or dying, would have a voice over narration of poetry. Lines that didn't deal with war, but with other topics surrounding - individuality, human cruelty, weakness, pity. All of those are topics related to war, but the lines zigged around the war. A battle would be waged, meanwhile a character reflects upon his usefulness to others. Is this what war feels like? I don't know, I've never been. Who am I to say? But by placing these voice overs all over the film, the poetry was forced. Rather than letting the dialogue and action shape the characters, the voiceovers were relentless and tiresome. A few would have made a point, kept it emotional. After awhile it seemed satirical. I just never felt that soldiers could act that enlightened during battle.
The movie looked good. Malick created a heaven in the hills where the soldiers attacked, then destroyed it through battle. The battle scenes seemed fine, though only one section really stood out - a sequence where the American soldiers were chasing the Japanese through a village. The camera was frenzied, never resting on anything to grab ahold of. One of the moments that didn't seemed forced.
I'm sure this is the worst, most incomplete review I have ever written. I've been searching for the way to critique this movie, and without fully comprehending it I'm unsure how a complete critique could be done. Perhaps as I write more reviews and get better at this process, I'll revisit the film and write another review. Or perhaps I'm right: if it is poetry that Malick created with The Thin Red Line who am I to judge his poetry?
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