07.11.07
Anti-war movies?
If there is such a thing as an anti-war movie, Letters from Iwo Jima is it.
I have never seen a film in my life that so consistently managed to not make war seem awesome. Platoon was supposedly an anti-war movie, but it was also really cool. Deer Hunter was supposedly an anti-war movie, but it made the Vietnamese out to be sadistic psychopaths. Even Apocalypse Now, one of my favourite (anti-)war movies, had a few (satiric!) sequences that were just really awesome with explosions and helicopters and Ride of the Valkyries and everything.
Iwo Jima shows that both sides have good guys and both sides have bad guys and killing each other systematically is just so goddamn futile. I really don’t know how Clint Eastwood turned out to be such a fantastic director, but I hope he keeps them coming.
EER said,
July 12, 2007 at 15:58
Isn’t that the movie that was accompanied by ‘Flags of Our Fathers’ (which tells the American side of the story)?
I have heard good things about them, apparently the extras on the dvd with Letters from Iwo Jima are a bit scarce compared to the extra’s on FoOF. But I should still get them sometime
Jonas said,
July 12, 2007 at 21:30
Yep that’s the one. Haven’t seen FoOF, it sounds a little boring.
Morten S. Clausen said,
July 19, 2007 at 21:13
STARSHIP TROOPERS!!! The smart man’s anti-war movie.
Jonas said,
July 19, 2007 at 21:14
Oh I hadn’t thought of Starship Troopers. It has the same satiric qualities as Apocalypse Now, the problem with ST of course being that, well… most people just don’t get it
Smike said,
July 26, 2007 at 03:59
That’s not the only problem with Starship Troopers.
I mean, I love the Verhoeven. And Troopers, in my opinion, had an obvious message approximately ten minutes into the film. But if MOST people - intelligent and otherwise - don’t “get” a film, I don’t classify that as a problem with the audience, that’s the fault of the writer and/or director. If I write something and people don’t get it, I take the blame. Me. Not my audience. A-Now was a truly great film. ST, not so much. I liked it, but it had some problems.
Morten S. Clausen said,
July 26, 2007 at 15:56
… By that logic the dumbest films are the best, which I don’t really agree with. Apocalypse Now is a superior film, but Starship Troopers has the most guts. To portray Americans as super fascist without starting an uproar in a country, where a young womans tit can change television broadcasting, is just so unbelievable funny. I’m not being anti-anything, I just love the contrasts. This movie oozes with irony and sarcasm (a common trait of European films), and has just about enough balls as Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. But where I believe Apocalypse Now and beforementioned hides a little behind beautiful imagry and comedy, Starship Troopers is uncompromising in it’s purposs. It’s hardcore fullblown ADHD perfect Verhoeven, operating on the same level of public appeal as Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (one of the best anti-drug movies of all time): Join the ride or get the hell out of the way!!!
“Would you like to know more?”
Smike said,
July 26, 2007 at 21:19
Don’t even think about giving me the absolutist position that by my logic this or that. That ain’t anywhere near what I’m saying and you should by all rights know that. ST had PROBLEMS - problems with acting, with story, with dialogue, with directing, all of the problems that raise their ugly head in much of Verhoeven’s otherwise fine work. But the two largest problems it had were the two most important things to myself and to most other good filmmakers I have encountered in my life: pacing and consistency.
In my view, Paul seems adept at getting his message across and is brilliant in his portrayal of concepts, but he’s not a very good director when it comes to the nuts and bolts and tends to rely on others in the production, who may or may not be very good themselves, for that work.
Thus, when I say a film has a problem when most of the INTELLIGENT audience doesn’t “get it” - that IS a problem with the film, by definition. They got A-Now. They got “Strangelove.” They even got “Fear and Loathing,” as much of it as there was to get. They didn’t get Troopers. NOT THEIR FAULT. If it would have been a better film, more of them would have. By the very definition of what a film is supposed to do - which is, take your pick: to entertain, to make you think, to portray a message, to educate, to make you laugh, to make you feel, to change your life for the better, or to destroy your perceptions. Troopers, for many, many people, does none of the above. It did for me. It did for you. And if it had been better, it would have for many, many more.
But I totally agree it had guts. More than A-Now? That’s insane. But it definitely had balls the size of Cantaloupes.
fox said,
August 14, 2007 at 12:07
I don’t think Fear & Loathing was an anti-drugs movie. It was as ambivalent as Hunter S. Thompson himself, which was brilliant! ST is imo also very ambivalent but contrary to Fear & Loathing it’s more of an accident. I agree that this can’t be the fault of the audience. Additionaly it is too much of an action movie to transport serious messages. People have fun watching all those action scenes and the whole movie pushes the funfactor wherever possible. This just doesn’t work as long as it doesn’t get pushed into the extreme. ST tried to do that but failed.