Charlie don't surf !!!!!! (Apocalypse Now Redux (DVD))

Member Name: 666disturbed

Product:	Apocalypse Now Redux (DVD)
Date:	06/08/02 (748 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: No war film is as cutting as this

Disadvantages: Difficult film to get to grips with

I was just a wee boy when this film was released back in 1979 and it was about 10 years after that I saw it for the 1st time !
Didn’t rate it very much back then, I was unable to understand what the point of the film was.
Another decade or so later and I’ve seen the film around a dozen times, I’m still not sure what the definitive point is, but this has become a favourite film of mine. (I’ve already done Jill a favourite thing op, although I could fill a textbook with favourite things).

Why ???

Well every time I see the film I get something more from it, talk about multi-layered this has it all peeps !
It is based on a book by Joseph Conrad called “The Heart Of Darkness”, which is set 200 years earlier than Apocalypse now, but has the same theme, it is a very difficult book to read, I suspect I would get more from it if I read it again much like the film, but I have so many books to read & review at the mo that it just isn’t possible.

Story !!!


Like the film, the book deals with the story of an explorer going into the heart of a jungle on a boat to find a missing individual. However where the book is talk of pirates and tall ships, the film is set in the Vietnam War and is portrayed beautifully by it’s varied and colourful cast of characters.

It opens with Captain Willard, played superbly by Martin Sheen, having trouble with his leave time, he doesn’t like leave, he wants to be back in the jungle where he can be at piece with his lost sanity. He knows he’s on the edge of reality and spends a lot of time fighting his inner demons in a shady smoke filled motel room waiting for military orders to save him from his own turmoil. The more I watch this scene and listen to “this is the end” by the Doors, the more I understand the guys madness. When a person does something for long enough it becomes part of them, to have it taken away is like
a removal of personality and the affected individual will do almost anything to regain this.

Willard’s orders finally arrive following a routine trashing of the room he is in, he is so salty by the time he gets them that he is willing to accept anything that gets him back in the jungle. The atmosphere in this part of the film so early on is astounding, it forms a connection between the viewer and Willard, who is the films central character, although not it’s star !

With relative impunity, Willard is given the almost suicidal mission from his commanders that he is to track down and eliminate “with extreme prejudice” the renegade Colonel Kurtz, Brando’s most awesome character of any movie, Godfather included ! Willard is given a boat and a crew to command as well as the classified files of Kurtz.

The film moves on swiftly from that point to where the crew and the boat await Willard at the start of the journey up the river in wartime Cambodia/Vietnam to find and kill the elusive Colonel.
Whilst on the boat the director (Francis Ford Coppola) takes time to introduce the other characters in order to build the viewers closeness to the crew, we meet the likes of Chef who isn’t actually a chef, he is a saucière, as he puts it. We get to meet the wonder kid who is far more interested in getting a tan and surfing than war, and as we discover later in a very famous scene, he is an outstanding surfer ! We meet the ships captain who is truly neurotic about his boat, eventually we return to Willard who is busy studying and contemplating Kurtz’s disappearance.

The Journey up the river is eerie to say the least, there is always something going on, usually a bit disturbing, for instance; The boat moors while the crew take a well earned break, Chef set’s out into the jungle to retrieve some mangoes from the river banks, only to be set upon by a tiger ! “Goddamn Tigers man! Never get off t
he boat, never get off the boat”!

As the film moves on it becomes darker and we begin to realize that Willard has much admiration for the Colonel he has been sent to kill, deeper still, he understands what motivated Kurtz to dessert the army and set up his own guerrilla outfit. He empathises with Kurtz and becomes more and more motivated into finding him !

The scenes in the film are very creepy with the horrors of war at every turn in the river.
The relief from the tension comes in the shape of Robert Duvall, as a gung-ho chopper squadron commander ! He is a serious surf fanatic ! He is enlisted to fly Willard’s boat to a safer part of the river, a job which he is reluctant to do until he finds out about the U.S. surf champion on the boat !
To the sound of Wagner’s Charge Of The Valkeries, we see the choppers coming in to attack the Viet-Cong while Duvall orders the boys “To get out there and surf !” and promptly follows the statement with “Charlie don’t surf, how can you trust a nation that doesn’t like surfing?”. It is a welcome psychological relief from the difficult story line as the lads take to the beach and Duvall exclaims, “I love the smell of Napalm in the morning”, as a section of forest is carpet bombed behind him !

Eventually Willard finds Kurtz’s jungle hide out, Dennis Hopper plays a deluded journalist who stays around to listen to what the “genius” Kurtz has to say, hundreds of Kurtz followers line up around the boat in an intimidating display of power.
We finally meet Kurtz who is dying of Malaria and is describing his dreams, “I dream of a slug slithering down a razor blade…….”, bizarre ! I really do have to go on about how superb Brando is, he was born for this part !!!

The story is based on the “king for a day” principle, where the old king cannot be replaced until he is killed by t
he new leader !
The closing scenes of the film are very alarming and the film does not really conclude itself, it merely ends and allows the viewer to make up there mind what Willard does next !

Spec.

Available on DVD now, £15.99 Redux version, containing cut footage of Willard meeting and falling in love with a village girl only to see her killed !
Available on VHS £9.99 no extras I’m afraid !

Conclusion.

If you haven’t yet seen Coppola’s masterpiece, then watch it, it could change your perceptions of life !
If you have seen it, watch it again, I’m sure like me you’ll get something more from it each time you see it !

Final word.

Winner of two academy awards, and the first film that both Larry Fishburne and Harrison Ford appeared in, this one monster of a film, at over 3 hours it’s not for the faint hearted !
Would recommend it to all fans of the genre and anyone who hasn’t seen it !

Feeling chuffed with his rather lengthy review;
:O) The disturbed one

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