This is a meticulous theme movie - produced by HBO, known for its good at shooting military themes, telling the story of Iraqi soldiers.
It's a movie about how a soldier gets home -- only from a special and sad angle. When 19-year-old Private Chancellor Phelps died fighting in Iraq and his body was shipped back to the United States, Marine Colonel Michael Strobl decided to escort him home himself. From Dover Air Force Base in Delaware on the east coast to dubois in Wyoming in the northwest is Chance's way home and where the story takes place.
However, all of this is just an appearance, the film is actually telling a story about the dignity of life. For this theme, the film abandoned the general characterization method of showing the spirit of the protagonist's deeds, but chose to show it from the perspective of the "other".
From the corpse handler at the base to the young hearse driver, from the airport ticket clerk to the captain, from the ground staff to the flight attendant, from the passenger next door to the funeral director, from watching the small town senior who grew up with Chance to side by side with Chance The Paoze brothers who fought, all provided convenience for Colonel Michael and cast a respectful look at him - of course, this was ultimately out of the respect of the deceased.
Of course, people will not have the slightest blasphemy for the passing Chance. When the hearse leaves the base, all personnel salute; every time the coffin is transported on and off the car, or when entering and leaving the cabin, Colonel Michael salutes; when the hearse is transported into the cabin, the ground staff automatically surrounds and stands in silence; when leaving the cabin at the airport When the hearse was on its way to Chance's hometown, the drivers along the way turned on the lights; during the funeral, the townspeople and Boy Scouts stood on both sides of the road holding the national flag... all The superposition of these details is only to tell the audience: to have awe and respect for the dead, and to respect the dead is actually respecting life itself and ourselves.
In this sense, the film has a certain philosophical significance, although its proposition is not new. For this theme, the director tried to downplay the ideological color of Chance's death, and only used the battlefield recording to tell the audience of Chance's death at the beginning of the film. In the middle, he used Bush's speech about the Iraq War in a newspaper read by a traveler to suggest the cause of death. Political Factors. On the whole, the film is calm, restrained and sad, and the superimposed details are also very layered, basically taking care of all classes, thus proclaiming the social identity of the theme and demonstrating a more general national consciousness. In fact, the maintenance of human dignity is one of the foundations of public opinion and legislative cornerstones of the constitutions of Western countries. Of course, whether or not real-life Americans are really as shown in the film is another matter.
We also had a movie about bringing the dead home two years ago - "Leaving Leaves Return to Roots". This is also a work with tragic characters and many details. Attentive audiences will find that it is full of contradictions and struggles, as if all people and things "have to", people are in an absurd reality context , which could have provided enough artistic space, but it finally appeared in the form of comedy, and the power of irony and criticism was swept away at once, leaving only cheap sighs and helpless heartache. There may be practical reasons for this, but the director wants to express too much may also weaken its charm as a film to a certain extent. Unlike "Taking Chance", it's just a theme, but it looks real and shocking.
The movie poster reads: "When one falls, another brings him home." Colonel Michael escorted Chance home. He was just trying to get rid of his boring administrative work. He also planned to return to the battlefield, but the whole escort process made him unable to Don't revisit your plans. At the end, Michael returns home, greeted by bright lights and warm hugs. Obviously, only home is the most eternal and warmest place for people to return - whether it is for the living or the dead.
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