The Thin Red Line

The Thin Red Line - A Soldier's Sacrifice This is my second time watching The Thin Red Line, the first time I watched it I felt somehow bored, whether that was from it being 2 hours and forty minutes or the fact that it was really early on into my film watching in letterboxd, that's all I remembered, that it was insanely boring. But this time was a polar opposite, Terrence Malick is a genius. Instead of a film glorifying battle/combat and brushing over the impacts war has on a soldier, Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line dives into the physiological aspects of a solider in combat. The disassociation and longing to be home is ever so present in the back of all of the soldiers minds. From the flash backs to Private Bell's wife to Private Witt's mother, these moments serve as a homage to every soldier's deep longing to escape the hell that they actively endure, war. The beginning of the film is as a prime example of a soldiers disassociation. We see AWOL Witt's living on a desolate island, seemingly escaping his own hell and trading it for his own heaven where he lives free from the worries of war, at peace with the nature around him. But no matter how far you get away from war, you are pulled right back in. This seemingly perfect life is all destroyed when he is thrown back into combat straight into hell, Guadalcanal. At Guadalcanal, the island's beauty is present from the very beginning. From the tall grass to the looming hills, the island radiates a deceptive serenity. Yet the bloodshed the soldiers endure in their struggle to capture Hill 210 paints a haunting portrait, one that starkly contrasts the calm of nature with the brutality of war. But that's just the first hour and a half, for the rest of the film we see how war has changed the men we have been following. The most significant change that stuck with me was Witt's himself, he went from a disassociated AWOL soldier, to a man willing to risk and sacrifice his life for the men he surrounds himself with. A beautiful but stark contrast to the vibes at the beginning of the film. "It stinks up here, all these dead people." "Put a cigarette up your nose." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ok now onto my thoughts where I don't yap as much. Terrence Malick is now solidifying himself as one of my all time goats of film. The way he leaves each scene with such an overwhelming sense of perfection is mind boggling. I really don't have one scene to highlight, to me everything was pure perfection, 10/10 no notes, pure cinematic bliss. Also, this casting was amazing, everyone did perfect at their roles and for some reason there was a ton of future and present (at the time) stars in this film. Sean Penn is again proving why he is the goat at being a supporting actor, just give him the Oscar for OBAA already. I still cannot stop thinking about some of these performances, this is going to stick with me for a while, welp. I could sit here for hours writing at 3 am, disecting this this film bit by bit but I'm not gonna do that, all I have to say is, watch it for yourself. "What difference do you think you can make? One single man in all this madness."