The Thin Red Line

After Dunkirk, after Saving Private Ryan, even after 1917, Apocalypse Now, or Full Metal Jacket, I dream—or something in me does—of taking part in a war. The romance of brotherhood, courage, and loyalty—something like that. But after The Thin Red Line, I know one thing for sure: I hope I never have to experience war.

Thanks to the Filmhallen, nearly all of Terrence Malick’s films can be seen on the big screen this February. A remastered version of Days of Heaven (1978) has been released, and that calls for celebration. Badlands, Days of Heaven, The Thin Red Line, The New World, Knight of Cups, Song to Song, and A Hidden Life will all be shown this month. Only To The Wonder (Malick’s most underrated film!) and The Tree of Life (his magnum opus) are missing—for reasons and paths that remain inscrutable. We take what we get.

The first film we attended was The Thin Red Line (1998). Finally on the big screen. For the first time. Malick made two masterpieces in the 1970s, then disappeared from the radar for years, translated Heidegger, even visited him with Hannah Arendt, and after two decades, he returned with this war film. Or rather, a war film that is not quite a war film. Or, perhaps better put, a war film that is so much more than that.

On the surface, The Thin Red Line is about World War II and the battle between the United States and Japan. The location: Guadalcanal, an island in the Pacific Ocean.

The Japanese occupy a hill; the Americans want to capture it. Difficult, because—as the Battle of Poitiers (1356) already taught—whoever holds the higher ground (the English) has a greater chance of victory. France suffered great losses there; even the king nearly perished. The comparison may seem far-fetched, but King John II of France charged up the hill like a headless chicken, determined to embody the medieval ideal of knighthood.

Six hundred years later, not much has changed in warfare. Colonel Tall (Nick Nolte) studied at West Point, read Homer in Greek, but had never before had the chance to go to war. Now, finally, he can take to the battlefield. And he forces his men to approach the hill head-on. Almost unprotected. Running upwards. Cannon fodder. That’s just war, he says. From a distance. Safely. He is. The soldiers, however, must put themselves on the line. They know what the colonel demands is nonsense. The Christian and prayerful Captain Staros (Elias Koteas) suggests approaching the bunker from the flanks. He doesn’t want his soldiers to die, which in itself is also a weakness—war, after all, demands sacrifice.

Besides the relationship between the colonel and the captain, two other relationships take center stage: Sergeant Welsh (Sean Penn) and Private Witt (Jim Caviezel)—this is the most important one—and a soldier and his memories of life at home, with his wife.

Private Witt has gone AWOL (Absent Without Leave) and is living among a primitive tribe. They sing, talk, swim, play. Utopian. The way life should be: noble and wild. But then, the massive military aircraft carrier comes into view, and Witt is taken off the island. The next shot: he and Sean Penn in a room. Witt, untouchable as he will remain throughout the film, lets the reprimands wash over him. They don’t reach him. War language is lost on him. Perhaps it’s a necessary evil, he is no coward, but he remains of another world. The sergeant, on the other hand, knows only the language of war. He doesn’t even believe another world exists. A child of the Industrial Revolution—and what is modern warfare if not a continuation of that?—he cannot think beyond it. Witt, however, simply does not recognize this world. Or rather, he does not acknowledge its absolutization. He has seen another world, a paradise—that is what matters.

Naïve, the sergeant thinks. This is reality—here, war. As if Jesus stands before Pontius Pilate. Two worlds with no possible reconciliation. Just like in the Gospel.

They remain intertwined. The sergeant—it seems as if he somehow cannot bear the fact that Witt believes in that other world, that he has hope at all. As if that which carries goodness must be trampled. But not entirely: he also seeks something in Witt, as if he intuitively senses there is something there, something so foreign to him, so unknown, but something he needs. Irritation and admiration. Awe. And Witt, meanwhile, remains unshakable. Later in the film, when the sergeant tests him again, he simply replies, "I still see a spark in you." Sean Penn looks at him suspiciously.

Here we see, as we also will in A Hidden Life, religion in practice. Religious existentialism states: because a person has a bond with God, and because that God is transcendent—that is, beyond this world—that person can never fully be this world. That is the essence of freedom. Thus, a Roman slave who is Christian can be freer than the emperor, who is completely consumed by this world. That conflict is evident between the sergeant and the soldier. Witt never fully merges with war and its codes. He manages to escape it. And that provokes jealousy and awe—it leads to crucifixions (Jesus), poisonings (Socrates), or expulsions (Jews) throughout history, because in their refusal to conform, they threaten the social order necessary for survival.

The freedom of the individual, which exists thanks to a bond with something beyond, versus complete absorption into the collective.

Malick is, alongside Scorsese, perhaps the most religious filmmaker of the moment. But less Christian, less Catholic. More attuned to nature, its enchantment, and also its shortcomings. If The Thin Red Line initially presents a dichotomy of nature (good) versus civilization (bad), the film evolves through Witt, and Malick gradually dismantles that assumption, introducing more nuance. He achieves this primarily through his camera work. From this film onward, Malick increasingly finds his style. The story is not so much told by the characters as by the way he lets them appear on camera, how the camera moves along faces, up to the ceiling (he often films ceilings), to an injured bird, the sky, and then back to a face. Meanwhile, we hear voice-overs.

Voice-overs began in Days of Heaven, but whereas they were then used to tell a story, now they serve as prayers, externalizations of deep emotions and thoughts—though, admittedly, they sometimes sound cheap, kitschy, as if written by Paulo Coelho. But that is only sometimes. Mostly, they sound like whispered primal screams from struggling souls. In The Tree of Life, this style truly reaches its peak, still serving the film’s narrative. After that, Malick either perfects it or pushes it too far (in my opinion), only to return to a more classical approach in A Hidden Life.

This style creates what Scorsese calls cinematic poetry. The Thin Red Line is an ongoing film with no clear beginning or end—you can step in at any moment and move with it.

Ultimately, The Thin Red Line is not a typical war film. Genre films transcend themselves when they are actually about something else. Mission Impossible 1–100 or Fast and the Furious 1–100 are purely about action—nothing more. That has value. Scorsese’s gangster films, on the other hand, are often about guilt, shame, redemption. The Thin Red Line is a war film. But whereas its contemporary, Saving Private Ryan, adheres to classic war film tropes—brotherhood, humor, bravery or cowardice—this is a war film that is fundamentally about something else. Freedom, existentialism, idealism, utopia or dystopia, and ultimately, as always with Malick, about love and grace.

And then, that third relationship—between the soldier and his wife. He says at one point:

"Love. Where does it come from? Who lit this flame in us? No war can put it out—conquer it. I was a prisoner. You’ve set me free."

(You see, this can either land perfectly or sound like the first quote in a spiritual self-help book.)

In a letter, he describes the horrors of war:

"My dear wife, you get something twisted out of your insides by all this blood, filth, and noise. I want to stay changeless for you. I want to come back to you the man I was before. How do we get to those other shores? To those blue hills."

The answer is: love.

It reminded me of Nick Cave, the Canadian singer, when he was asked about the problem of evil in the world. His response:

"There is no problem of evil. There is only a problem of good. Why does a world that is so often cruel, insist on being beautiful, on being good?"

He flips the perspective. The question is not why is there evil, but rather, how is it that goodness manages to persist? That the world does not deserve anger or disappointment for its cruelty, but instead, awe for its goodness. That through it all, love is a force—a gentle force, as Pope Benedict XVI writes in his books on Jesus—but precisely because of that, an indestructible force that always resurfaces.

How is it that we keep finding that flame, that keeps making us capable of and willing to give love, to speak love, to dwell in love? It is not easy, certainly not. And yet, it always rises again.

"One man looks at a dying bird and thinks there's nothing but unanswered pain. But death’s got the final word. It’s laughing at him. Another man sees that same bird, feels the glory."

So says a voiceover in the film.

All the characters circle around this question in a war film that, thankfully, never really becomes a war film.