I have a theory that you can tell a lot about America, arguably the home of movies as most of the world understands them, and its relationship towards the wars it’s been involved in that have run during the course of cinema’s history by looking at war films themselves. Saving Private Ryan holds the biggest place in popular culture, dwarfing how often All Quiet on the Western Front is referenced. Jarhead goes overlooked and unmentioned, and I don’t even think there’s a film notable enough to stand in for the Korean War. And then you have The Deer Hunter, Apocalypse Now, Full Metal Jacket, and Platoon – so conflicted is the United States on the subject of Vietnam that it had to keep coming back to that war… sorry, police action, over and over, arriving at the same conclusion: nothing was accomplished save the deaths, both physical and spiritual, of countless young men.
That running motif of internal conflict, of a nation tearing itself apart in its failure to understand the Vietnam war, guides the film. Fresh-faced soldier Chris Taylor (Charlie Sheen) joins a platoon in the Vietnam jungle being split down the middle in following either the noble Sgt. Elias (Willem Dafoe) or the sadistic Sgt. Barnes (Tom Berenger). It’s a black-and-white conflict, but made interesting because it all takes place on one side of the larger conflict. Taylor’s choice of which man to emulate is raised beyond the simple dynamics of the group and taken to a more philosophical plane: when placed in the dehumanising situation of war, do you have it in you to remain human? The actual scenes that make up the bulk of war films – the brief moments of combat interspersed with the long hours of downtime – though impressive and/or character-building in the right places, are almost background noise, filler material; it’s the idea that it’s almost the toss of a coin as to whether a person gives in and goes dark or not that dominates any impression the film leaves. It doesn’t suggest anything especially wrong about the individuals that break down, either – it’s the whole situation that’s to blame, the war machine itself that strips away a person’s soul, and there really is no true defence other than to, as Taylor notes early on in the film, to die early so you don’t suffer. I don’t quite know what it says about war when all the best war films are anti-war films, but it does make me a little hopeful for a moment.
sarcasmbeast 