The Thin Red Line (Den Tunna Röda Linjen)

The Long Long Red Line...

It is 1942 and the battle for Guadalcanal has commenced. The Pacific island must be seized and secured by American troops so that the island can be used as an airbase from which to attack Japan. Lieutenant Colonel Tall (Nick Nolte) leads a battalion which is about to land on the island as part of the invasion force. A career soldier, he is anxious to enhance his reputation in this battle. As the marines file into the landing crafts, he tells the commander of C company, Captain Staros (Elias Koteas) that he is confident in him to get results.

The troops land on the island without resistance and move inland. At the foot of a hill, they come under fire from hidden machinegun posts further up the hill, which command a view over the American's advance and must therefore be removed. Despite heavy casualties and Capt. Staros's objections, Tall orders another attack on the hill, which results in more casualties. Tall is afraid that if the attack is delayed, other battalions will arrive to assist in the attack, and he will have to share the credit. He is far less concerned about the fate of the men under his command.

The attempts to overcome the Japanese positions are mainly led by Sergeants Welsh (Sean Penn) and Keck (Woody Harrelson) who lead an almost suicidal and unsuccessful attack on the bunkers. When Staros refuses to commit his troops to further frontal attacks, Tall chooses another officer, Captain Gaff (John Cusack) to take over the command and attack the bunkers.

The bulk of The Thin Red Line is concerned with Tall's men attempting to capture the hill. However, Terrence Mallick uses the story of the attack to explore the feelings, fears and hopes of the soldiers involved. The young soldiers should have long lives to look forward to, but instead are trapped on a tropical paradise, facing almost certain death. How do they react ?

Mallick builds up the tension very effectively. The young soldiers are expecting heavy resistance as they land on the beach but find nobody there. As they advance inland, they pass an islander, an old man with wild grey hair and beard wearing just a loincloth. He treats them with complete indifference as they stare at him in bewilderment, fully laden with weapons and pack. The battle scenes, when they arrive, are outstanding and not just in terms of spectacle (though the battle scenes are particularly well staged). No, the main strenght of the combat sequences is mainly derived from Mallick's fine attention to detail which highlights the human aspects of the fighting; the terror, the cruelty and the arbitrary nature of the violence, and the strain that such an environment puts on individual soldiers. This is shown in many ways in one truly memorable scene after another:-in the faces of two soldiers sent ahead in full view up the hill to find the Japanese, knowing full well their likely fate; in the panic and confusion of an attack on a Japanese camp, involving hand-to-hand combat; the sheer adrenalen rush of a daring flanking attack upon the bunkers by a small group of volunteers, and the dilemma of commanding officers forced to make decisions which they know will kill the men entrusted to them.

Mallcik attempts his philisophical exploration of warfare by tracing the fate of a number of characters throughout the film. Private Witt (James Caviezel) is a dreamer, who believes that there exists a better world, where people are content and without fear. He occasionally abandons his platoon to spend time among the native inhabitants :- he is fascinated by their ability to live their lives untouched by the war raging around them. He recalls that, at the time of her death, his mother had felt absolute peace and acceptance. She did not fear the prospect of her death. He wonders if he will be able to achive the same calmness at the time of his own death.

Witt's behaviour and idealism constantly irritates and mystifies his commanding officer, Welsh (Penn). Welsh is a complete pragmatist, determined to survive. He is capable of tremendously brave acts, but he doesn't see his actions as brave, merely as doing what is required. Another soldier, Private Bell (Ben Chaplin) is sustained throughout the battle solely by his devotional love for his wife.

Chaplin is simply superb as Bell, and he should feel unlucky that he didn't receive an Oscar nomination. However, the acting is uniformly superb throughout the movie. Penn and John Cusack are both excellent:- Cusack's portrayal of the laconic and ambivalent captain who leads the daring assault on the bunker is wonderful. As the ruthless Lt. Col. Tall, Nick Nolte gives a outstanding performance. When Captain Gaff returns from the raid on the bunker, Tall tells him that there will be medals for him, because it will make the battalion (and therefore Tall) look good. At the eve of an all-out attack on the bunkers, Tall orders a naval bombardment of the hill. As he says to his aides, the shelling won't affect the Japanese at all, but it will make his men feel like their Lt. Colonel is looking after them.

Malick's ability to choregraph the battle scenes is first-rate, and he shows, in a subtle way, how the fighting affects both sides in the same way - the Japanese are mainly scared youngsters too, who suufer the same terror and fears as the Americans.

In addition to the excellent acting, the photography is thrillingly beautiful, so one would think that the Thin Red Line would be a candidate for movie of the year. Sadly, this is not the case, simply because there is a slim and beautiful two-hour movie hidden within the overweight and lethargic carcass of this three-hour epic. There are a few basic problems with the movie. The first relates to the large number of characters. The story never really settles on any particular character or relationship and the film suffers accordingly. The relationship between Sgt. Welsh and Pte. Witt remains frustratingly under-developed and Sean Penn is badly underused. Another drawback is the narration - it adds almost nothing to our understanding of the characters or the story, and the constant droning of simplistic philisophical musing serves only as an irritant.

But the worst aspect of the film is the completely unnecessary symbolism which is present throughout the film. There is enough animal footage to host a National Geographic special, from a menacing crocodile sliding into the water, snakes wriggling through the grass, a newly hatched bird struggling to survive and so on. When Pte. Bell thinks about his wife, the audience are subjected to very long flashbacks of him with his wife. Apart from ruining the pace of the film, it gives the impression that Malick didn't fully trust his actors to convey the intended message. In fact, the sheer quantity of the symbolic scenes only serves to lessen the impact of the uniformly excellent performances. It seems odd, given that Malick is obviously talented enough to elicit such great performances from these actors in the first place.

Though it is perhaps unfair to both Spielberg and Malick, it is natural that audiences (and critics) will compare The Thin Red Line and Saving Private Ryan, since the two movies share a common theme and are also competing for the various awards this year. What both movies have in common is the mark of very talented directors to emotionally engage audiences on a well-worn subject. While I feel both movies are flawed (though in different ways), they demonstrate why the two directors are so highly regarded, and why actors want to work with them. Unfortunately, in the case of The Thin Red Line, a taut, exciting and thoughtful movie is spoiled by too much verbose meandering. If Malick ever releases a director's cut that is about an hour shorter than the cinema version, he could well have a classic on his hands.

Directed by Terrence Mallick.

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