Apocalypse Now

I have never experienced a war movie like Apocalypse Now. It was so raw and unrelenting. Many of the themes found in O'Brien's The Things They Carried are present in the movie. One of the first ones I noticed was when Captain Willard was in his hotel room and talking about his time back at home and how he wanted to be back in the war, yet once he got there he wanted to be away from the death again. It is the same experience that we find in O'Brien's novel. It is a madness that is evoked in his mind because of the gore and horror he has seen in the war. Everyone reaches a breaking point, and that is truly epitomized by Kurtz. I think the most interesting thing about Kurtz is listening to his life before he deserted and went into Cambodia. He was from a military family, he was an extremely decorated military figure, and he was being groomed for a position in politics. He was, for lack of a better term, normal. But something snapped in his mind. The good doesn't always win like people hope it would. I think for Kurtz, and many other soldiers, the horrors of war and what had to be done in order to survive blurs the line so much between duty and murder that it's maddening. All sense of morality is gone when someone is shooting at you or a bomb is detonated ten feet away. Kurtz definitely isn't a person who should be idolized in any way. But when Willard kills Kurtz, the question that is still floating in the air is really can you have morality in war? Willard did what he was told to do, but does that make it right?

One of the strangest scenes in the movie for me was right after the "Ride of the Valkyries" helicopter scene when Kilgore tells some of his men to surf amidst the gunfire. It was such a crazy notion to seek something enjoyable in a time of pain and suffering. Again I found similarities to O'Brien. War is not always death and horror like people think. There are times of enjoyment. That's not to say surfing during a fire-fight is enjoyable, but it creates an escape from the present. It takes one's mind off the madness around it and focuses it on something good and enjoyable.