Still the best, personal account of modern Warfare (Platoon (DVD))

Member Name: mcader

Product:	Platoon (DVD)
Date:	13/02/09 (6 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Moving criticism through experience

Disadvantages: None

Possibly Oliver Stone's best film (himself a veteran of the conflict). This is the key here I think: it is a very personal account of mordern warfare, and we find that madness is not only in the madcap fighting against the enemy, but on his own side too.


It is not only an exceptionally engaging narrative of Vietnam but one which genuinely explores and celebrates the types of men involved, their struggle with the tendencies or weaknesses in themselves and against what a victory over those weaknesses might mean as a soldier in such conditions.


What makes it one of the best war movies is this exploration - as brilliant as Saving Private Ryan is a tribute - is where men become released from the constraints of society and become brutal and amoral beneath the threat of death. The special society of the army in the jungle reflects the extremes of emotion they must endure that leads to deeper bonds and more profound hates.


The threat of a loss of an inner sense of humanity is recognized by the hero of the film (Charlie Sheen) and by the character Elias (Wilhem Dafoe, who is ultimately made a sacrifice to it).

Others like Barnes (Tom Berenger), deny this inner sense of humanity, scorning its existence and using such scorn as strength but who, the film may imply, are wrong.

All of them may be victims of this tendency in the theatre of war - but it is only Elias, the good soldier and side to man, who is worthy to survive and yet it is he who perishes on the field, suggestive of what this war really achieved.


The three principle characters excel in conveying the crucial antagonism and tensions between them. Our narrator ends by trying to make sense of it all, and looking to the future. We know that the film we have watched has been a part of this process.


A brilliant depiction of a place - this time Vietnam - where mentality and emotion could be forced towards irrational and savage extremes... reaching a point where a sense of responsibility for what resulted was lost.


The music - Adagio for Strings by Samuel Barber, a modern American composer - is used perfectly in this film. Many associate the theme with this film now.

Summary: Experience the internal and external conflicts of going to war