Analysis of Apocalypse Now Film by Francis Ford Coppola - Movie Review Example

Apocalypse Now, by Francis Ford Coppola (War in Vietnam) Apocalypse Now is considered to be among the greatest films to be produced in the latter half of the twentieth century and this has been attributed to its unique content and plot that has rarely been matched by other films of the same genre. It is essentially the story of how army captain Benjamin Willard goes on a hunt for rogue officer Walter Kurtz who has abandoned his highly decorated career with American armed forces during the Vietnam War and has instead become a leader of a native force that is based in a neighboring country. The film is a revelation concerning the realities, which the members of the American armed forces had to undergo during the Vietnam War and the actions which they took to ensure that they survived it and returned home. Throughout the film, one will find that all of the actors have become absorbed into their roles and because of this absorption; they are able to depict the events of the war in a manner which is as close to reality as possible. There are instances in the film when the scenes become extremely emotional, as some of the characters have to deal with diverse issues that affect their lives during the war. It is during these moments that the audience gets a picture of how the soldiers who were involved directly in Vietnam were forced to undergo psychological torment over the various actions which they had to carry out, however futile, in order to ensure that the war was won. One of the themes that one finds in the film is that of depression and war weariness and some of the characters in various scenes depict this during the course of the film. In the film, the American soldiers are depicted as having to live lives in a manner which is not relaxed and that they have to constantly be on the look out to ensure that they do not fall victim to enemy attacks. For the most part, the film shows these individuals as having to live their lives on edge, not knowing whether they will be attacked in the next minute or not and having to either fight off or run away from the constant dangers that they encounter in the jungles of Vietnam. The result of living such lives is that it begins to take a toll on the way that they associate with each other and how they perceive the world around them. The result is that some of the characters, such as Chef and Lance undergo such mental strain that they are more often than not shown being under the influence of drugs. A scene is depicted where due to Chef’s craving for mangoes; he and Willard go to the jungle where they encounter a tiger that attacks them although the two men manage to run back to the safety of the boat in which they are travelling upriver. This incident really affects Chef who becomes more withdrawn from then onwards after suffering a nervous breakdown that is further brought about by the boats crew shoots into the jungle in random manner thinking that it is the Vietcong attacking their comrades. The result of Chef’s breakdown is the souring of the crew’s mood with an instance where Lance also becomes withdrawn from the rest of his comrades and rarely saying anything to them for the rest of the trip, showing that the tense mood that has come to dominate their lives has had a negative effect on him. An aspect of the film that is depicted in various scenes is the dehumanizing nature of the Vietnam War on the American servicemen. This is shown in a scene where Chief stops a small boat that is carrying local peasants and Chef boards it to carry out a search. During this process, a peasant woman moves suddenly towards a can that she seems to want to protect but this is believed to be a threat by Clean who shoots into the small boat killing all of its passengers except for the woman. It is then revealed that the can contained a small dog, which the woman was attempting to protect, and that the killing of all the peasants was an unnecessary move. When Chief Orders that the woman be brought onboard so that she can be taken to safety, Willard kills her instead believing that to take her to safety would be putting his mission in jeopardy. It is from this moment on that the disturbed nature of Willard begins to be shown to the audience as it is realized that he is so focused on his mission that he fails to adhere to feelings of humanity if he believes that to do so would make him lose focus. The scene above shows the brutality and inhumanity that occurs in was because in the struggle for victory between rival forces, it is always the civilian populations, which end up suffering by paying the price of such wars with their lives. These people are treated like pawns in such political struggles; the forces involved in such wars tend to secure their support through a display of torture and murder. Moreover, the brutal killing shown in this scene is one that depicts the strain under which soldier normally are to ensure that they keep themselves alive by any means necessary so that they can be able to return to their normal lives. The boat finally reaches its destination with only Willard and Lance surviving because the rest of the crew are killed by primitive natives and those who are under the command of Kurtz. The people over whom he rules treat Kurtz like a god and the audience is surprised to find that he is very philosophical about the circumstances in which he lives. Moreover, one gets the feeling that even though he has a lot of power, he is not fulfilled. He seems to be an individual who has grown tired of the war and has become disillusioned with the brutality, which he has to mete out on the local Vietnamese population to fulfil the orders of his commanders. Therefore, after capturing Willard and putting him in a cage, he releases him the next day practically allowing him to have free reign over compound. This raises the possibility Kurtz knew that Willard had been sent on a mission to kill him and because he has become disillusioned with the kind of life that he is living, he provides Willard the opportunity to fulfil his mission. In this manner, Willard kills Kurtz using a machete and although he has killed their leader, the native people who were under the latter’s authority do not take revenge, and instead acknowledge him as their new leader. The film’s ending is a mystery because as Lance and Willard pull away from the shore, Kurtz’s last words “the horror....the horror” are replayed; the meaning of these words is lost to the audience. While some would consider the ending not to be satisfying, the ending can be considered a fitting one for such a great film because it allows the audience to keep guessing at the possible meanings of Kurtz’s final words and their implication. While the film ends in suspense, the strength of the story that it tells allows the audience to have a representation of the various events that took place during the Vietnam War and how they came to affect the servicemen who participated in it. Works Cited Apocalypse Now. Dir. Francis Ford Coppola. Zoetrope Studios, 1979. Film. Read More