Thin Red Line

In the film, Thin Red Line, I was most affected by the idles and icons to which/whom each of the men turned when faced with trouble. This movie portrayed so closely the terror of a soldier, torn from his home and isolated from his family, witnessing death constantly. Twice towards the beginning of the movie, we see two men looking to their comfort to give them strength and endurance. With one soldier, it was memories of his wife at home and the faith that she would remain there waiting for him. With the Captain, he turned to a God he believed would deliver him. This man prayed earnestly: "let me not betray you, let me not betray my men. In you I put my trust." God served as an icon to return the gaze of this man, to see and hear him in this de-humanizing experience.

I was also interested by each man's individuals reactions in the midst of the terror. One man sat in a trench as they were about to advance up the hill and convulsed with "cramps from the food." The pitiful man, covered in his own drool as he gagged, seemed to be having a panic attack in the face of the danger. As soon as the Captain agreed to send him to the medic, however, the man promptly stood straight up and walked away. Contrastingly, some men showed profound peace and seemed to be disconnected from the actual events around them. A man laid in the grass further up the hill while being fired upon and took a moment to stop and gaze in curiosity at the branch of a fern; he reached up and gently stroked the back of it and watched as the leaves curled up. Despite the chaos around him, he was able to disconnect from it as a sort of defense mechanism to the horror. And then there were a large number of men who seemed to be aware of what was going on around them, alert, and somehow callous to the truth of the desolation and death. Each man was finding a method by which to react to the unknown ahead of them.

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