Sitting at home in Helena, watching Terrence Malik’s “The Thin Red Line.”  It is a beautiful, lyrical film baed on James Jones’ novel about the World War II battle of Guadalcanal.  There are lots of blues and greens, like Fuji film, and beautiful cinematography, starting with the opening scene with Melanesian children swimming in the blue Pacific, white clouds above, Melanesian songs in the background. We see a tropical paradise, with colorful birds, blue and green, and red and yellow parrots, tall palms, and light shining down through Banyan trees.  The main character, a U.S. Marine named Witt, is swimming with the natives, interacting with their gentle culture.  There is a wonderful voice-over throughout the movie, Witt’s voice, very philosophical, asking about the human soul, and what created us, and about the spark that is within each of us:  ‘Who are you that makes all these many forms?”

There are three great scenes, the opening with the idyllic native world of Melanesia, the Solomon Islands, filmed on location.  Then, the battle scenes showing Japanese soldiers with camouflaged helmets and backpacks filled with branches and leaves, brownish uniforms, leggings, aiming air cooled machine guns, waiting for the American Marines in the fog, the Americans advancing, bullets whizzing (“whoosh”) out of the fog, single shots, close but how close.  You hear them passing very close.  Then the U.S. attack through an abandoned native village, overrunning the Japanese.   Hans Zimmer’s music, his deep chords, mixes with the voice-over as the two sides are killing each other in the frenzy of hand-to-hand combat, no quarter given: “This great evil, where does it come from? How did it steal into the world? What seed did it grow from? Who’s doing this?  Who’s killing us?”

And then, the penultimate scene, where Witt and his platoon are scouting along a river, and a Japanese reinforced battalion is coming, and Witt sees this and leads the Japanese off into tall green grass, where he is surrounded by a close circle of fifty Japanese troops, all aiming their rifles at him.  He is being taunted by a bitter Japanese sergeant, urging Witt to try to shoot it out, the Japanese rifles and uniforms the best I’ve seen in any movie, very realistic.  And then Witt, resigned, raises his rifle, and is shot, and the light streams from above, from the tree tops, like a beam, streaming down on this last moment of Witt’s awareness.  And then, suddenly, Witt is swimming again with the Melanesian children.  He has crossed over into a better world.  Witt always said to himself that this was somehow possible.

Then there is a scene with George Clooney playing the new Captain after the battle, reviewing the men in ranks, offering platitudes, using military jargon with the veteran survivors:  “I’m the father and Top Sergeant (Sean Penn role) is the mother…” and some other b.s.   It never stops, Malik seems to be saying, officers leading men to take impossible hills.  This is the theme of “Gallipoli” and other great anti-war movies.   One of the survivors in this movie, a brave officer loved by his men, Captain Stavros, is replaced at the end for refusing to take an objective which would only waste his men’s lives.  The Colonel (Nick Nolte) relieving him tells Stavros that he is too soft hearted.

In the final scene, the Marine survivors  are being relieved, leaving “the Canal,” boarding LSTs  to go to their transport ships home.  They are marching past a makeshift military cemetery where their comrades are buried, and we hear the voice-over  of a young Marine survivor:  “there’s only one thing a man can do, find something that’s his, and make an island for himself.  Who are you (our creator) that I have lived with, walked with?  Dark and Light, and strife and love, are these the workings of one mind?  A glance from your eyes, and my life will be yours.”   And, then we see a young battle weary Private on the transport ship home at the end, on the stern, watching the white wake mix with the blue ocean waves, and him telling others in his southern accent, “I’m determined now, I’ve been through thick and thin, and am ready to start living good.  It’s time for things to get better.   That’s what I want, and that’s what’s going to happen.”  Then we see a palm frond in the surf,  and hear Witt’s voice: “who are you that I lived with and walked with, a brother, a friend?”  Then we hear the Melanesians singing as the credits come on.