I find them all resonating in various ways. Hey, the Romance of
the 3 Kingdom TV series is riveting for me too.
Ironically enough, my favorite is The Thin Red Line. It absolutely
blew me away the 1st time I saw it, & to this day I still like
to watch my DVD copy a few times a year.
The cinematography itself is incredible, really made my eyes water.
The amphibious landing reminded me of being attached to the CDOs
when "we" assaulted a Tekong beach. The lalang-swaying hills - oh,
the hills - made me flash back to doing blind clearance in the Live
Firing Area; believe me, such terrain do still exist in S'pore. The
seaborne departure - wiser, relief at having preservered, yet dying
a little internally - recalled my own emotions when leaving
Temburong for the Bruneian capital after 5 exhausting weeks of
jungle-training. (The latter journey, however, is physically closer
to the boat trip along swampy mangroves in Apocalyse Now.)
TTRL has little by way of plot but I think a normal combat peng
could connect with that. After all, mission objectives belong more
in the officers' & NCOs' realms - sometimes the word gets
passed down, sometimes they don't. As the movie depicted, the "men"
just trekked from Unknown Point A to Unknown Point B, resting when
they could & engaging in mindless (boring) chatter when doing
so. The extensive monotony was occasionally broken by unexpected
violence &, while SAF soldiers obviously hadn't seen real
battle, I think the sudden adrenalin rush - while trying to take
stock of the situation in seconds - is something local troops could
identity with when "contacted" the Aggressor Company or whatever
enemy. Plus, IMO the movie also hit home how a monumental
completion of an individual task (small-unit improvisation to flush
out a sniper), which ultimately wouldn't matter in the bigger
scheme of things, would nonetheless be ingrained within the soldier
for the rest of his life.
Kubick was a genius. They don't make such personal-vision films
anymore since the '70s, after the studios seized creative control
following the Heaven's Gate fiasco. Too bad if today's SAF troops
can't "get it", but do give it a chance. Lose yourself in the
movie.
