Film Review : The Thin Red Line by Terrence Malick ( 1998)

One of my favourites ; a haunting war film

Film Review : The Thin Red Line by Terrence Malick ( 1998)

After a long hiatus from film making, legendary director Terrence Malick ( best known perhaps for Badlands with Martin Sheen ) returned with a film in 1998 that had most critics raving and a lot of the public distinctly underwhelmed, downright dissatisfied, and sometimes baffled. It was one of those films that seemed to show the strange divide between what is often popular with the masses, and what a critic rates.

The film, based on a Jim Jones novel,  follows a company of marines trying to take an entrenched Japanese position at Guadalcanal during World War Two. It features a stellar cast and a beautiful setting, which in particular serves to contrast with the horrific brutality of the battle to come. But more on that later.

I wasn't sure about this film at first, and I can understand the reaction of some. Several people I've spoken to said they couldn't actually finish The Thin Red Line. One saw it in the cinema and walked out after 30 minutes.

At first, and maybe especially because I had recently seen Saving Private Ryan, I too found The Thin Red Line slow and dull ; long cinematic shots  and a droning poetic soundtrack mumbling away in the background. It certainly didn't match up to the frenetic, gut wrenching excitement of the beach scene of Private Ryan, or most scenes of that film for that matter. It takes a good thirty minutes before the action commences. Even when the battle starts, as American marines storm a hill at Guadalcanal, the action looks average compared to saving Private Ryan and other contemporary war films. Explosions, people flying through the air 'A- team' style ; big deal right ?  However, it's the quiet moments strangely inserted within the action that start to capture your attention, and you soon realise that something else is going on here.

In the middle of a bombardment that is destroying his platoon, one marine hiding in the deep green grass inexplicably reaches out and strokes a small plant. It recoils at his touch and shuts its leaf, as though the very Earth itself is rejecting the battle around it . Another shot in the same sequence shows a baby bird crawling painfully out of it's destroyed nest ; alone, terrified, horrifically fragile. Somehow the scene can make you cringe even  more than seeing a man being obliterated by an artillery shell. The absurdity of such destructive power raining down on such a helpless creature is a painful and powerful metaphor. It's here the gifts of Malick show themselves ; and eventually convince you to watch the film again and really appreciate the layers built into it.
 


A second viewing for example made me reappraise the  first gun-shots fired in the movie. Two American scouts are ordered up the hill, and two shots ring out, seemingly from nowhere. The men fall and disappear into the grass, and then the sun washes over the scene. In the eerie silence that follows, the grass changes from dark to light and then ripples in the wind like an ocean.  It's as if the Earth has cleansed  itself and the two poor souls never existed.

Whilst the film has many great and well known actors and features a veritable army of cameos, three oppositional  pairs hold the movie together. Jim Caviezel, in one of his early roles, is the main character who faces off against a cyncial, hard-bitten seargent played competently by Sean Penn. Caviezel's character Witt is an easy-going dreamer who refuses to be beaten down and brutalised by the war. Penn's character Top thinks the best we can do is hope for survival : " If you die, it's gonna be for nothing. There's not some other world out there where everything's gonna be okay ." But it seems to be Witt's reflections that overlay the film, as, like the camera, he seems to see beauty in even the most horrible of circumstances. It's a stoical performance from Caviezel that is hard to read at times, but nonetheless is an arresting one. Sometimes, admittedly, the smirk on his face gets a bit much and you wish Top would wipe it off with a left hook. But he has screen presence, and much of Charlie Company seems to agree and sees something special in Witt. Even Top, despite his apparent antagonism, seems drawn to Whit like a better half. There is something almost messianic about the portrayal of his character with his calmness and his belief in some other beautiful world. One wonders if this film convinced Mel Gibson, in a sober moment, to cast Caviezel as Jesus in Passion of the Christ.



















 Witt, smirking.






But it's Nick Nolte and the ever reliable Elias Koteas who give the most memorable performances ; Nolte as the ambitious Colonel who sacrifices lives for the glory of the regiment, and  Elias butting  heads with his commanding officer as he tries to save the men he has come to view as sons. In my favourite moment of the film, the greatest acting is done by, yes, a forehead.  Koteas tells Nolte he will refuse to order his men to continue their suicidal frontal assault on the hill. The stunned expression on Nolte's face as he sees his dreams of regimental glory crumbling is priceless, and shows genius acting ability ; the man moves a few muscles in his face and conveys EVERYTHING.



For most of his scenes on the island, Nolte looms large in the camera like an old dinosaur. Even sitting in a chair doing nothing, his craggy features seem to out-act his fellows.
Less powerful perhaps, is Ben Chaplin's character ' Bell' and the correspondence that links us to his wife. Nonetheless, Chaplin holds his own in the battle scenes. The other minor characters feature John C. Reilly, Adrian Brody, Woody Harrelson and John Cusack amongst others, and all do a sterling job. Dash Mihok, whom I've always thought was underrated, puts in a particularly strong performance.
 
Dash Mihok ? Oh yeah, that guy from Romeo and Juliet. 

Even John Travolta puts in a quick minute, though he has as much military presence as fudge on a stick and might be a weak link.  By the time the film is drawing to an end we have seen such competent acting from most, that when George Clooney himself makes a brief cameo ( and this is '98 remember, when Clooney was at the height of his career ) , our reaction is like that of the hardened veteran whom he briefs and vainly attempts to impress  ; ' Big Deal !'

It says a lot about this film however  that even these great actors are sometimes lost in the cinematography and writing. The location, soundtrack and poetical commentary provide perhaps the most powerful moments. This is a beautiful landscape, with rolling green hills and gorgeous orange sunsets. The viciousness of the war seems amplified in such a setting. This is indeed War in Paradise. Philosophical commentary, almost in a Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass style, adds to the moments that focus on the natural setting, and also catches the soldiers in their lone moments as vulnerable men, boys even. The background commentary, though slightly irritating at first, soon becomes an integral part of the film. The charming southern twang helps. Though the movie was nominally based on the book by Jim Jones, much of the dialogue is actually taken from the better known novel 'From Here to Eternity' and is provocative and thoughtful.  In a particularly moving scene, Caviezel comforts an obviously traumatised soldier and the voice-over comments on the futility of  : " Each man looking for his own salvation, like coals drawn from a fire". Alone, we fade and die. Another striking scene builds tension before the main face -to- face battle. As the camera focuses on a Japanese face, dead and half buried,  the voice of the dead man asks incredulously : " Did you think because you were good, kind, that your suffering would be less ? Know that I was, too..". Unnerving, and one of many moments that made me return to the film again and again. The soundtrack that accompanies the following battle builds to a truly terrible climax and has been well used in many other films. Other lighter moments in the film use Pacific Island gospel singing to good effect. Hans Zimmer is on particularly good form here.
 


As the effects of the battle  become apparent on the men ( " War don't enoble men ;  turns 'em into dogs ") we realise the war is not just against the enemy, it is against each other, and ourselves ; against that in us which stops us reaching out and embracing each other as brothers. War is an extreme, organised form of the madness that makes us strike out at our fellow human beings.  In a later scene, Caviezel returns to the idyllic native village that he earlier lived in when he was AWOL. As if they are infected by the imperialists battling it out on their turf,  Caviezel now sees villagers fighting amongst themselves. But was it ever really idyllic ? A peek at  a row of human skulls inside a hut prompts the question :  Are they trophies ? Is violence inherent in all of us ? Are we doomed forever by our nature to fight and kill each other ? Meanwhile, others comment on the " war in the heart of nature" and how " the land contends with the sea ". As Nolte's character tells Koteas ( Captain  Stiles )  when firing him : " Look at those vines. Way they wrap around that tree. Nature's CRUEL Stiles." Maybe, but we must listen to our better instincts, and fight the madness, as Stiles did.
In another striking scene that is as heartbreaking as any, a Japanese officer attempts to separate the soldiers in  a final battle.  Like a schoolteacher pulling children apart, he  screams vainly for the insane killing to stop. He speaks for all of us ; how did we ever get here ??

If you didn't like this film first time around, I urge you to give it another go. Every viewing will add to the richness of this masterpiece. There is much, much  more I could write on this film, ( it speaks to the impression it made on me that I am quoting from memory and have not watched it for a year ) but I will sign off with a quote from one of the fine starring actors. At the Hollywood premiere, Koteas called the film ' haunting.' Indeed. It has haunted me, and I return to it often. I think I know what I'm watching tonight.

Key Quote : "What difference do you think you can make, one man in all this madness?"

Images courtesy of Phoenix Pictures.