Thin Red Line

In the early-90s, when Terrance Malick decided to adapt James Jones 1962 novel, “Thin Red Line”, as a movie, Hollywood’s A-list expressed its interest in working on a Terrance Malick’s project. It didn’t matter if their appearance was just few frames. It took 20 years of research for Terrance Malick before he decided to go with the film - which eventually released in 1998 after months (literally couple of years) of post-production work [for more informative read].

The movie is about a WWII battle at Guadalcanal between the US forces and the Japs. More than the overall battle, the movie deals with the battle within the individuals involved. The dialogs are pretty introspective. Here is some:

—
Japanese Soldier: Are you righteous? Kind? Does your confidence lie in this? Are you loved by all? Know that I was, too. Do you imagine your suffering will be any less because you loved goodness and truth?
—
[first lines]
Private Witt: I remember my mother when she was dyin’, looked all shrunk up and gray. I asked her if she was afraid. She just shook her head. I was afraid to touch the death I seen in her. I couldn’t find nothin’ beautiful or uplifting about her goin’ back to God. I heard of people talk about immortality, but I ain’t seen it. I wondered how it’d be like when I died, what it’d be like to know this breath now was the last one you was ever gonna draw. I just hope I can meet it the same way she did, with the same… calm. ‘Cause that’s where it’s hidden - the immortality I hadn’t seen.
—
Private Witt: What’s this war in the heart of nature? Why does nature vie with itself? The land contend with the sea? Is there an avenging power in nature? Not one power, but two?
—
[last lines]
Private Edward P. Train: [voice over] Where is it that we were together? Who were you that I lived with? The brother. The friend. Darkness, light. Strife and love. Are they the workings of one mind? The features of the same face? Oh, my soul. Let me be in you now. Look out through my eyes. Look out at the things you made. All things shining.
—
Private Witt: [voice over] This great evil. Where does it come from? How’d it steal into the world? What seed, what root did it grow from? Who’s doin’ this? Who’s killin’ us? Robbing us of life and light. Mockin’ us with the sight of what we might’ve known. Does our ruin benefit the earth? Does it help the grass to grow, the sun to shine? Is this darkness in you, too? Have you passed to this night?
—
Private Witt: I seen another world. Sometimes I think it was just my imagination.
First Sgt. Edward Welsh: There’s not some other world out there where everything’s gonna be okay. There’s just this one, just this rock.
Private Witt: I can take anything you dish out. I am twice the man you are.
First Sgt. Edward Welsh: In this world, a man, himself, is nothing. And there ain’t no world but this one.
—
Sergeant Storm: I look at that boy dyin’, I don’t feel nothin’. I don’t care about nothin’ anymore.
First Sgt. Edward Welsh: Sounds like bliss.
—

As one of the Producer sums it..“Much of the violence was to be portrayed indirectly. A soldier is shot, but rather than showing a Spielbergian bloody face we see a tree explode, the shredded vegetation, and a gorgeous bird with a broken wing flying out of a tree”

One of the Critics notes it as “The Thin Red Line is a movie about creation growing out of destruction”

I personally felt it was a fascinating treatment to an oft repeated subject. It dwells from the perspective of a soldier. Though it was the second time that I had watched this movie, I am seriously surprised that we don’t have similar genre of movies in our Film industry. One that deals with the psychobabble of an Indian soldier or a Policeman. The internal battle that a straight-forward Officer has to wage amidst a department that is known for its corruption and loss in values by being a manipulated proxy to spineless Politicians. I mean, movies the bring out the emotional truth can succeed in sending a message to the society about the realities of being an officer of duty conscience in a handicapped department.

Though I’m not against the genre of usual masala films, i think sufficient talent and time has not been invested in movies that would make people aware of certain Profession. For some reason, idiots like Perarasu and Hari (not even worth a mention) have their naive fascination of packaging sensation in the fight for social justice and thereby blinding democracy in the progress (read: with third rate dialogs and dramatic depictions).

That’s right, as per Private Witt, I still live in another world.