It is so perfect we wonder if it is real life

Reviewed by Jacques COULARDEAU, 2008-08-04

In this film Altman is considering the Vietnam war but from the point of view of the young men who are drafted into that butchery without even having the slightest choice at their disposal. The war, the heroic war is supposed to bring the best of man in the limelight of their personalities. It sure brings the deepest layers of all human beings in the foreground. So imagine a bunch of macho young men, black and white, plus a few older Non Commissioned Officers who are having no real private life because they spend their life killing enemies they despise. Who would marry these men who are never home and who spend their time shoulder deep in blood? Their complicity becomes complacent and we can wonder what makes them go on behaving like bad boys who only want to play hide and go seek. The draftees are not better but they are younger so they don't know about bees and flowers and birds and flying fish. And their sexuality is both in great conformity with the standard public norm and absolutely uncertain and fuzzy. Bring one real gay man in that bunch and what was only vaguely misty in the background becomes sunny bright in the foreground. The college graduate who was cool about it turns aggressive and even violent. Unluckily a black hustler is a lot better trained at self defending himself. The young college graduate will die in his own running blood. One of the older NCOs will come along and, as drunk as a barrel of gin, he will run into the situation and against the hustler who will puncture him good and well, once and for all. It is then the survivors finally understand what they are in for. The gay young man will start crying - a cliché mind you - and the others will hide or try to ignore the mess. The only interesting element in this film is the acting of the bunch of actors who are holding the screen and the audience for nearly two hours. They act so well, so much like on an intimate theater stage, that we totally enter the game and believe it. Apart from that the male psychology is explored in details but it is not what it really is or the film has tremendously aged.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines