syer Review of The Thin Red Line

The Thin Red Line (1998)

One of the best and one of the most challenging films ever made

[26 December 2003]

God, I love this movie. People can think what they want about it; I watch it again and again and find I am basing my own philosophy, my own view of the world on it. It's like Mecca; I keep going back to it, finding new forms of enlightenment and and new layers of wisdom. It also appears to be of the 'love it or leave it' variety, judging from the comments on the review page. I first saw it a couple of years ago, and now I have both the video and the soundtrack to the film, which I thought was unbelievably great and a masterpiece in it's right. But I do respect it if people find the film simply doesn't 'speak' to them. People respond to many different kinds of movies, and we all have movies that we claim as favorites and hold to our heart because there's some indefineable SOMETHING about the film that just touches the deepest chords of our soul every time we think about it or see it. What other people think about it doesn't really matter to us, when it comes to those kinds of films. I could endlessly praise this film, but it's late at night here so I'll just finish by saying that I think "The Thin Red Line" is the wisest cinematic examination of the human experience ever put to film. The dialogue, the voiceovers, the exposistion, the music, the photography-everthing is miles beyond in it's intent focus on the strange and wonderful behavior of the human race. I also find it to be the brainest, most intelligent film I have ever seen without a shred of prentention. That's what I think is Terrence Malick's greatest strength: an ability to express his ideas in a rather obtuse and arty way, without it SOUNDING arty and obtuse. It just sounds true. That's all I have to say for now.