War Movies

March 7, 2010
Camp Leatherneck, Afghanistan
01:55

I've been watching a lot of movies at work lately when there's down time, or just plain when no one's talking to me. I take off my headphones when someone walks in the door or when I hear something on the radio, so it takes me a lot longer to finish a movie than it would if I was un-interrupted.

I also started reading Twilight, but...ehem...that's a different blog post.

I was watching The Thin Red Line the other day, and I watched Flags of our Fathers today. They're really good examples of the kinds of war movies I enjoy and believe in. I rarely can accept a war movie that shows the winning side of the fight. I don't feel that's the correct way to make an anti-war film (which they all should be) and elicit a proper response. How can you really make a statement about war when the main characters come out on top and everything ends happily? That would suggest that "hey, it's alright to go to war, as long as you win!" and that doesn't really make sense.

The Thin Red Line and Flags of our Fathers show the "winning" side of WWII, but they really delve into the cost of victory in those two seperate instances. The Thin Red Line especially is a pretty downbeat movie, and Flags is as well, though it's a little more accessible.

I'm more interested in war movies that show the other side of the conflicts such as Downfall, Letters from Iwo Jima, Stalingrad, and even Gods and Generals since this country seems to classify the CSA as the "bad guys" of the war.

These movies make so much more sense to me, especially when the antagonists of the movies are people we've always known as the good guys in the past. I think it puts things into perspective better when characters are shown reacting to similar situations in similar ways, but they're on the opposing side of what we're used to viewing. All Quiet on the Western Front is a good example of this, as all actors are American with no foreign accents and they act very American, though they're wearing a different uniform and fighting the French.

This was just on my mind when I got off work, so I thought I'd mention it.