Get Up Lazarus, You're Resurrected: Tigerland (2000)

I am on a constant search for excellent war movies, particularly since given their heightened states of tension and leaning towards the epic narrative, usually means that the product will at the very least be engaging and even entertaining.  Of course, when I discover particularly enjoyable films within the genre they are usually the ones that take a huge stride in deconstructing some element of war, or in the case of Joel Schumacher's 2000 film completely rejecting the idea of filming war altogether.  In fact, what makes Tigerland a bit distinct from its counterparts is that it never makes it beyond the training fields, yet manages to still include many of the elements of loss and confusion that are prevalent within a warfare riddled nation, particularly the politically fueled and ethically murky engagement that was Vietnam in America.  While this film does rely on Colin Farrell for much of its performance and narrative, it is a bit varying from other war films in that it is occupied by established characters, who are, nonetheless, not the household names their masterful performances might suggest, this is very obvious in the work delivered by both Clifton Collins Jr. and one of my favorite working actors Michael Shannon, whose cameo is beyond awesome, although calling it such would suggest that the man has accrued a heavy degree of star power.  I digress in my adoration for Shannon, but his scene paints a larger picture for the film which looks at the very debasing nature of training for war, one that is hinged loosely on an agreed upon following the rules, although everyone is aware of their absurdity, especially in the face of absolutely certain death in a foreign country.  Shot with a grainy digital handheld camera and edited disjointedly, one wonders if Schumacher's film would not fit perfectly within the canon of Dogme 95, or at the very least borrows heavily from its push for realism, which results in images that either poetic or horrific, even becoming both in rare occasions.  I am aware of people who will discount this as a war film because it does not have the sort of sweeping grandiose elements of the classics, but where those movies lavish in spectacle, Tigerland counters with a very real consideration of war and humanity.

Tigerland is set at the back end of Vietnam, at a moment when it was quite obvious that success was impossible and that the continual training of soldiers would result in more unnecessary deaths on both sides.  Realizing this one soldier Private Bozz (Colin Farrell) takes it upon himself to become the guy who knows all the tricks and legal means with which to get out of the army, serving as a sort of boatman on the river of Thames who takes people from the hell of training back to their lives which by contrast seem angelic.  These acts are of course heavily condemned by his superiors thus leading to his being constantly berated and demoted in hopes that he will eventually just succumb to the reality that he will end up in Vietnam.  Bozz adamantly refuses this fact and takes to undermining his superiors while also picking out soldiers who he knows are better suited at home.  One of Bozz's first undertakings allows him to help a young southern man return his wife and children on the grounds of hardship.  His helpful actions earn him the respect and trust of another member of the war Jim Paxton (Matthew Davis) who has joined the war after a fallout with a woman during college.  Bozz makes matters worse by constantly contradicting his appointed squad leader Miter (Clifton Collins, Jr.) who becomes the victim of insults and condemnation by drill sergeants who blame him for the insubordination of Bozz, even though it is made quite clear that they are displacing their own frustration upon the helpless Miter. Eventually, Bozz explains to Miter his purpose and through this explanation allows for Miter to obtain a discharge on basis of psychological issues.  While enemies in the higher ranks are obvious, Bozz also makes enemies with the racist and violent Wilson (Shea Whigham) who due to his own psychological breakdown attempts to pull a gun on Bozz and Paxton, an act for which they attempt to get him court marshaled.  While Bozz has done his best to avoid going to Vietnam he inevitably takes the next step and begins training, along with Paxton, in Tigerland, which is describe as the home front equivalent of Vietnam.  It is there that the two realize Wilson has indeed been allowed to stay in the army despite his psychosis, leading to one final shootout, where Bozz takes the opportunity to wound Paxton just enough to not hurt him, but allow for him to avoid being sent overseas.  Bozz himself is sent to Vietnam, and seems quite calm about his fate, only demanding that Paxton never write about him and forget about his presence altogether, although the closing voice over suggest that Bozz's reputation takes on almost mythic qualities.

It begs to be asked whether it is even possible to describe a film that never leaves the foot of a training camp as a proper war film.  Of course, the training flick is a staple of war, whether it be the comedic films of World War II or something more recent like Stripes.  However, these films often have a noticeable degree of comedy and light-heartedness about them since the characters shown are never really experience war.  Tigerland takes its style more from the world of Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket or Ridley Scott's G.I. Jane and argues that in a time of warfare, the haunting experience and psychological breakdown occurs far before stepping foot in the war zone, however, those two films do indeed extend beyond to consider the actual war, therefore adding the layer of reality to the fear and rage that had manifested itself up until that point.  While it is acknowledged that Bozz does eventually step foot in Vietnam this occurrence is never visually verified and at the point in which this is explained the narrative has become Paxton's who also never steps foot in Vietnam.  I would posit that the reason this works with such fluidity and narrative cohesion is almost entirely a result of the particularly infamous nature of Vietnam, then and now.  The soldiers in the film are all aware of how terrible the situation is in Vietnam and were, for the most part, drafted involuntarily.  Their respective anger and paranoia is not so much of having to fight for their country, but, more so, a result of knowing they will be doing so with assured futility.  Where this film then extends beyond just claiming that Vietnam was a lost cause, is the post-Vietnam awareness of how terribly veterans were treated by the country who viewed them as child murders and rapists, completely ignoring that their engagements were forced.  While characters like Wilson and the various drill instructors serve as the antagonists within the narrative, viewers cannot help but remember that nobody wants to be in the situation and any sort of reminder of its absurdity is only a reminder of their imminent demise.  This realization helps to explain why Bozz is such a threat, because unlike Bozz who is attempting to destroy all things in a mindless rage, Bozz manages to get all to think about how complacent they are within their own down fall.  Bozz rejects the war, he rejects the training for war, and attempts to hide it in indifference, when in fact he seems to care far more than any other person in the film, both about the sanity of hope, as well as about ending war both physically and metaphorically.

Key Scene:  Michael Shannon explaining the benefits of battery shock torture is next-level acting.

This is one of the greater war films of this still burgeoning century and is cheap to get obtain.  I highly recommend that you get a copy.

I Can't Go Home Without My Dog Tags: R-Point (2004)

It should be no surprise that I decided to include at least one horror movie in my month of scary movies that was from South Korea.  As some of my readers may know I have been focusing many a blog post on South Korean cinema, particularly New Korean Cinema as it has become a research interest of mine now that I am in grad school.  While I could have went with just about any contemporary South Korean film as they all have certain elements of horror and certainly always seem to have at least one gory scene, I decided upon South Korea's highest grossing film of 2004, Su-Chang Kong's R-Point.  While I expected a bloody, somewhat non-linear film full of suspense from a South Korean horror film, I did not also expect to engage with such an excellent war movie, particularly one about the Vietnam War.  A near-perfect genre hybrid R-Point is precisely what I have come to love over the past year and a half regarding South Korean cinema: realized plots, unapologetic moments of humor in serious situations and deeply ponderous reflections on the state of society in a modernized South Korea.  Despite being set in 1972, R-Point goes to great lengths to comment on notions of masculinity in South Korean culture, as well as reflect on their troublesome, and historically overlooked, involvement in Vietnam.  R-Point even goes so far as to do some very clever things with "the gaze" in cinema something that I cannot wait to bring up in future academic presentations.

R-Point begins with an eerie radio signal being dispatched over a communication line, in which it is realized that the people calling have been reported missing for at least six months.  After the credits roll we are introduced to the films main protagonist Lieutenant Choi (Woo-seong Kam) a rebellious, yet decorated veteran who is fresh the controversial murdering of a Vietcong woman, who he kills in cold blood without giving her a fighting chance at survival, even though it is realized that the woman was indeed armed.  Rather unwillingly he is assigned, along with the direction of Sergeant Jin (Byung-ho Sun) to lead an ever rag-tag group of soldiers to rescue the lost men from a location known as R-Point.  After a few tests, one of which requires checking for STD's, the men are sent on their mission and a quick photograph is snapped before engaging in their mission.  It is only a matter of moments before they engage in a firefight with some remaining Vietcong fighters, one of which is a woman, who a younger member of the squadron is too afraid to kill, a fear that Choi recognizes, agreeing to spare the woman's life.  The soldiers then enter R-Point only to discover that is has served as a burial ground for a large amount of Chinese soldiers, ones that many of the group fear still haunt the fields.  Upon discovering an abandoned temple the group sets up post and this is when things truly become bizarre, between dark apparitions and inexplicable radio signals from French soldiers things begin to fracture amongst the group, leading to suicides of members that may or may not have been in the group from the onset.  As sanity slips it is realized that each interaction and conversation may have been an illusion and distrust arises, particularly once Choi realizes that the Chinese soldiers were not the only ones to die  at R-Point.  In a climactic shootout amongst the group one soldier is left as survivor and as the narrative suggests it is due entirely to being morally redeemable and void of any blood on his hands.

R-Point does a number on the buddy film made famous during World War II, while it certainly begins as such, minus the initial horror element, this comfort soon falters upon realizing that their threats come not from the traditional aspects of war, but from something otherworldly.  In this case they cannot bond over masculine success in killing or being an expert marksman, as might have been the case in something like Platoon.  As such they resort to acts of excrement or sexual prowess to justify their power, as occurs when one soldier pees on the Chinese engravings as a claim of power, or when the group is tested for STD's and one man is mocked for testing clean.  Futhermore, as was relevant in the previous blog about House on Haunted Hill, questions of rationality and emotive responses to what is seen become a point of masculine power or lack there of, ultimately, contradicted in the films closing sequence in which every character is forced, simultaneously, to challenge their notions of the rational, which has very dire consequences.  Even their acts of excrement as domination are undermined in a scene in which a character is showered in blood, perhaps reflecting the past scene of pissing on grave stones, in which the soldier reacts in disgust because he is now being degraded in a way that one of the soldiers had previously degraded a sacred place.  Finally, the notion of the gaze is incorporate throughout the film, quite similarly to the way in which it occurs within Fallen, yet in this case it focuses solely on the male group and becomes, like Mulvey suggested a destructive force of sorts, yet in this case it is destroying masculine bonding and power, a rather interesting occurrence within a film that involves a very small, all be it influential, group of women.  However, and perhaps most important, is the clear commentary on how war negatively effects a persons psyche, particularly when they are a casualty and lose a serious portion of their self-identity.

Key Scene:  The initial encounter with the ghosts of the lost squadron is beautifully oneiric.

This is a great horror film and arguably an even greater war film, while I am not sure it would make the cut for my favorite war movies of all time, I could see it placing high on my favorite Vietnam films.  This is a must own for anyone who fancies Korean, horror or war films and a holy grail for somebody, like myself, who enjoys all three.

Free Your Mind, And Your Ass Will Follow: Platoon (1986)

Over the years Oliver Stone has sort of gained a reputation as being an abrasive director who often loses sight of making a good film due to his penchant for making politically scathing commentaries within his work.  Fortunately, on a few occasions Stone manages to keep the criticism focused enough to create a spectacular work, this is the case with Wall Street and is certainly the case with Platoon.  In the same vein as war movies like Saving Private Ryan and Thin Red Line, Platoon is loaded with a veritable who's who of emerging Hollywood actors, and a few veterans colliding together in brilliantly stacked performances, ranging from a smile-wielding Forrest Whitaker to a soft-spoken, yet suave Johnny Depp.  A film with a frenzied pace and incoherent editing structure, Platoon depicts a film about war as though the viewer is actually amidst the action, perhaps due to the fact that Stone himself was a Vietnam veteran, helping to explain the vehement and focused rage of his films.  At no point in the film does the narrative fall stale and having known the plot to this film well before its viewing, I found myself nonetheless blown away by its cinematic presence and general enjoyability.  Trying at times and poetic at others, the mix of cinema verite and exploitative grandiosity comprises what could well be one of the best war films I have ever seen, if it were not for the existence of Stanley Kubrick.  Platoon is an American classic and deservedly so, it like Citizen Kane or Easy Rider has a very real place in the historical landscape of American cinema and society.

Platoon introduces us to the hellish experiences of one enlisted soldier named Chris Taylor (Charlie Sheen), who has done the unthinkable and actually volunteered for service.  Along side a gang of lively soldiers, Taylor experiences the emotional and physical drains of war.  This includes amongst other individuals King (Keith David) a wise-cracking African-American man on the lookout for a means to leave the jungle, Sergeant O'Neill (John C. McGinley) who strives to gain promotions within his squadron despite being overlooked multiple times, as well as the less than authoritative Lieutenant Wolfe (Mark Moses) who is clearly scared by the entire Vietnam ordeal.  However, much of Taylor's war experiences are contentiously battled between two sergeants, one the hippy, hash smoking Sergeant Elias (Willem Dafoe) who clearly tries to befriend those around him and wants nothing more than to leave and Sergeant Barnes (Tom Beringer) who is ruthless and maniacal, seeing the war as a means to purge the earth of lesser beings.  Constantly confronting one another over the "soul" of Taylor, Barnes and Elias become incredibly confrontational to the point that Barnes kills Elias in cold blood during  a shootout, ultimately, leading to the squadron being disbanded.  After a short rest, Taylor is sent back out to war and, after yet another skirmish, finds himself with an opportunity to exact revenge for Elias and act he quickly undertakes, killing Barnes.  Ultimately, the film reminds us that war often pits allies against one another, leaving the enemy secondary, at least this is how Oliver Stone remembers Vietnam.

I could go into detail about how Platoon focuses on the intensity and sporadic nature of war, or I could talk about the racial vision of Stone's Vietnam.  More so I could talk about this film's political nature as it relates to other Stone movies, however, none of these approaches quite matches the idea of possessing souls as it relates to Platoon.  In this context, Barnes and Elias represent two reapers of souls, Barnes for the evil and Elias for the good, or so it seems, it could be said that both are simply corrupt soldiers seeking to validate their existences.  Furthermore, both Barnes and Elias have their assumed apostles, the various troops in the squadron siding with whom they find the most reflective of their own ideals.  It is saturated with religious metaphors and imagery from the presence of crosses, to somewhat ironic ankhs, as well as the now famous and oft-parodied death of Elias, which is all to Christlike.  Furthermore, it is, in my belief, no accident that Christ Taylor, becomes Christ T., a bit on the nose but quite fitting with Stone's religious study of war.  Overall, the film reads as a glorified study of The Golden Rule, one that is, ultimately, questioned, revisited and undermined in two hours of cinematic perfection.

Key Scene: Guns and smoke...and not from firing said gun.

This is a classic, and undeniable stamp on the greatness of American cinema, and while I watched it on Netflix, I would venture to say that the bluray is worth looking into, I know I intend to grab a copy.