The background of the film is the Vietnam War period, but compared with "Full Metal Jacket" or "Apocalypse Now" with the same background, the German famous director Herzog does not focus on criticizing war like Kubrick and Coppola. The destruction of human and human nature, but tells the great experience of German-American pilot Dieter Dengler from capture to rescue, and uses this to reflect the individual's brave and optimistic qualities, which may not be as deep as those two. It is a classic of the Vietnam War, but it also has a simple connotation, which also moves the audience.
Dieter is both a real character and an artistic image. When creating this character, Herzog focused on "optimism" and did not show any discouragement throughout the text. Disgusting, but in such a harsh environment, it is not completely unbelievable, because the slightest abandonment is almost death.
Dieter's survival is divided into two phases. One was in a prisoner of war camp, where his difficulties were artificial. On the one hand, it comes from the detainees, and on the other hand, it comes from the inmates. Among them, when the detainees do not have special "inhuman abuse", it is the inmates who have the greater difficulty. When he first arrived at the prisoner of war camp, several other prisoners of war had been exhausted from the long detention, especially mentally. For Dieter's proposal to escape, some scoffed, some were timid, and some were lucky to be released, which was basically the mentality of waiting to die. In the face of negativity, Dieter used actions as inspiration, such as making gadgets, observing the daily habits of detainees, and formulating escape plans. At the same time, there is also "language therapy", and the most prominent part is to let everyone take turns imagining various foods during the meal. When raspberry pie, big turkey, Budweiser, pancakes, oranges, eggs... all come out of their mouths like water, what they may be in front of them is just a dish of disgusting maggots.
The second is in the wild, when Dieter escaped from the Liao Village, the virgin rainforest in Southeast Asia became another nightmare. Heat, hunger, torrential rain, mudslides, leeches, dangers from nature emerge in an endless stream. Of course, there is also the madness of the ignorant Laotians. Dieter's good prisoner Duveen was cut off by the Laotians with a sickle. It is worth mentioning that the music of this passage is quite successful. The timely strings are mournful and desolate, which well sets off their desperate and desperate situation, which is impressive.
In this film, Christian Bale once again contributed to the "weight loss" performance after "The Mechanic", from the heroic and sturdy when he was captured, to the final shape. In addition, munching on maggots, eating water snakes, and crawling and rolling in the rapids of mud are no different from the scenes of their British compatriots in "The Wilderness". Aside from the slightly formalized first and last parts, the main body of the film is still very attractive under the performance of Bell, at least it can make people sweat for the fate of these prisoners of war, but also for Dieter's. Happy to be finally rescued.
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