The Thin Red Line (1998) dir. Terrence Malick
Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red Line is unlike any war movie I’ve ever seen.
I liked it a good deal better than the other film’s I’ve seen of his. The action sequences serve to punctuate the long, still stretches of wandering through the grass – Malick’s favorite pastime. This makes for a more active film, and one more likely to provoke thought than sleep – as Days of Heaven and The New World did for me.
I saw this just a day after re-watching Apocalypse Now. For Coppola, evil is the usually hidden heart of man that war uncovers.
For Malick, good and evil are all around us, always. Our characters are normal, grounded people, who are both good and bad in war and in peace.
The Thin Red Line is #646 on the 2011 edition of the TSPDT 1,000 list I’m blogging through. I’ve now seen 407.
