This is called "the first most faithful film about Vietnam". After the film was released, it has attracted deep attention from American politicians, veterans and even ordinary citizens in terms of artistic quality, historical and political authenticity.
For nearly 30 years, the United States has been trying to destroy the revolutionary regime in Vietnam. It first supported the French to reconquer Indochina in 1946, and then engaged in so-called "low-intensity wars," that is, using local tribes to fight. Military intervention. Three million Americans have been sent to Vietnam to fight the longest war in American history. The United States dropped three times more bombs in Vietnam than it dropped all over the world in World War II. Nearly 3 million people died in this war in Vietnam with a population of 35 million.
In 1975, the U.S. military evacuated from Saigon in a desperate manner, bringing back the corpses of nearly 60,000 U.S. military officers and soldiers and a large number of disabled people. This war, known as the "first military defeat" in American history, has brought great psychological shocks to American society. From the president of the United States to ordinary citizens, almost no one can accept the pain of the destruction of the "American myth." fact. However, as the "post-Vietnam syndrome" eroded American society after the end of the war, Americans' understanding of the war of aggression became calmer and more realistic, and the level of reflection on the war in the form of films became more and more in-depth.
"Field Platoon" was written and directed by Oliver Stone. Oliver Stone was born in New York, USA in 1946. He was in full glory in 1967. Like most American youths, he was sent to Vietnam to participate in the war. When he left Vietnam, the medal on his chest was accompanied by the unforgettable trauma in his soul and body. Perhaps it was this unforgettable experience. Stone's role as a queen in his scripts, whether it is "Midnight Express", "Scarface" or "Year of the Dragon", has involved more acute social problems or infiltrated A strong sense of morality, and the social resistance in his works is incomparable to the playwrights employed in Hollywood of his contemporaries. As well as the scripts of "El Salvador" and "Field Platoon" written by him, his consistent and serious themes have become more and more vivid.
"Field Platoon" is not Oliver Stone's autobiographical film, but the director did incorporate his own personal experience and feelings on the battlefield in Vietnam; as a passionate patriotic youth, he served and defended the motherland. , For the sake of American ideals and honor, he did not hesitate to use his body to defend his youthful pride. In the film, he used his sincerity and feelings to shape the emotions and mentality of the protagonists Chris Taylor, Elias, Barnes and other American youths who went to Vietnam to participate in the war. Deep thinking about unjust war.
At the beginning of the film, Chris walked down from the US military helicopter, indicating that he would leave his motherland, the motherland, and face this strange world independently. This is a handsome young man with a higher education and good family traditions and education. His parents opposed him to be a soldier, hoping that he could be a respected person like them, with status and a house, but he did not want to be that way. He came to Vietnam because of his basic motives: "You can't just let the children of poor families go to war" and "To do something for the country like my grandfather did in World War I." It can be said that when he went to Vietnam The original intention is noble and holy, even with an idealistic color. But from the beginning of his landing, he encountered unexpected tests: harsh natural and living conditions, strange people around and unfamiliar environments, rapid marches beyond physical strength, possible Viet Cong and death at any time, to his hometown and relatives The longing for him, and the most unbearable pain came from reality's challenge to his ideals and beliefs. In the squad, he was caught between Barnes and Elias, experiencing a struggle between good and evil in an almost decadent environment. In the face of war and slaughter, after perplexity, confusion, anxiety, painful experience and thinking, he finally made the correct judgment: even in war, people must follow a moral code. After experiencing the death and rebirth of the body, especially the spirit, he reinterpreted the meaning of the dignity of the motherland and the dignity of the individual; he re-interpreted war, aggression and humanitarianism with blood and tears; and made the meaning of survival and the value of life. I have defined my own; I have an adult perception of friendship, understanding and care. To the end of the film, when Chris boarded the plane returning to the United States, what he had in mind was the responsibility to the dead and the living, a sense of responsibility to the motherland that was completely different from before.
Barnes is a representative of another type of people in Stone's writings. From Barnes, you can see Colonel Kotz in "Apocalypse Now", Sergeant Hartman in "Full Metal Shell" and other war madmen. The shadow of it, but neither is it. There is only one thing in common between them: they have lost their rationality because of the war. From the perspective of pure military technology, they undoubtedly have high military literacy, but once indiscriminately killing innocents, they lose the basic direction of a soldier. After Barnes killed the innocent villagers, he had a dispute with Elias. In order to avoid the trial of the military court, he killed Elias in a blockade. When his actions aroused opposition from soldiers with a sense of justice, he explained his actions like this: I don't want to escape reality, I represent reality. Death, have you seen it? From Barnes, it is not difficult to see that the war has alienated his spirit. He has 11 holes through which the Viet Cong bullet passed, but he died in the justice ruling of his subordinate Chris. He once fought bravely as a sergeant. He once gave orders to the soldiers of the squad and even his superiors. He can kill Vietnamese villagers who are not capable of resisting. On the surface, he seems to have some kind of power, but it is precisely among the soldiers. The strong will inevitably become the victims of the war. While the American army's artillery fire burned the land of Vietnam, it also burned his conscience. The dominance of the American army that radiated from him made him ultimately unable to get rid of the tragic and shameful end of evil and evil. After learning from the pain, Stone unabashedly explained his dislike of the Vietnam War and his views on war decision-makers in Barnes.
Opposite Barnes is Elias, which is a positive image that the director intends to establish. Elias is an experienced military veteran who knows how to fight. He and Barnes are both sergeants, but Elias cares about his subordinates, takes care of the recruits, and is very responsible for his teammates. He is dedicated to his duties, always charging forward when performing tasks, he is quick to respond, but calm. This excellent soldier in the traditional sense was ridiculed as a "coward" because he opposed Barnes's killing of civilians. After a scene of killing villagers, Chris had a conversation with Elias: "Are you at odds with Barnes?" "Barnes is a capricious person." "How about you?" "It was before 1965." This way, not now. Our country is too domineering, it is time for them to be punished." The Vietnam jungle war did not burn his nerves, but made him more and more aware of his country’s problems and the aggression. The nature of the war. He didn't want his army to become a "gun-killing team," nor did he want recruits with no actual combat experience to die in vain, and he didn't want the U.S. military to continue to commit crimes. However, he was unable to change his military policy. He had to take the lead and reduce the casualties of his companions. The director expressed his deep respect to him through the film. It was such an upright soldier who had gone through many battles and was killed by his colleagues without dying under the guns of the Viet Cong. Witnessing Barnes shooting at Elias with a gun, witnessing severely wounded still being surrounded by a large number of Vietcongs, and his own helicopter roaring over his head but unable to help, the scene that eventually led to his tragic martyrdom was horrible. Tremor. Stone said that such an outstanding soldier who was supposed to contribute to the country died of a command error by his superiors and an incident under the gun of his "owner", emphasizing that on the Vietnam battlefield, on the American side, "the enemy is among us". Indisputable facts, and the fundamental idea of "this war cannot be won".
In 1975, U.S. President Ford was in his White House office, watching the U.S. troops finally withdraw from Vietnam from TV. Later he once said: "That day was the most painful moment in my life. I witnessed the Americans being kicked out of Vietnam." This was of course the most painful moment for Americans in the 20th century. Stone has the same feelings as other Vietnamese veterans. He hopes to be accepted, sympathized and tolerated by relatives and compatriots after returning to China, and be treated kindly by the government and related policies to comfort their hearts and bodies who have been wronged and hurt. Make your contribution for the country be treated fairly. However, they found that the anti-war party in the country believed that they were sinners of the war, but the party who was fighting at the time ignored their existence as much as possible, and was unwilling to remind them of the national shame just because they valued them. So this special group feels unprecedented loss and loneliness. Due to extreme mental despair and the shadow of guilt and self-doubt, at least 50,000 Vietnam War veterans suffered from traumatic syndrome, and 60,000 died from this pressure. After returning to the United States from Vietnam, Stone has always wanted to make a film about the Vietnam War, although his original intention cannot be realized only by impulse. In the more than ten years since the end of the Vietnam War, many films have described the Vietnam War from different angles. By 1986, Stone decided to use his method to tell the United States and the world the real Vietnam War he saw and felt. Tell the next generation of Americans.
What Stone wants to tell people most is that on the battlefield in Vietnam, the visible enemy is the Viet Cong, and what is even more terrifying is the invisible enemy, which is spiritual and moral corruption, and the corruption of moral standards. He wanted to tell people that the Reagan administration at that time wanted to promote American mythology through the Vietnam War, but the fact is that the American mythology was defeated by the American government itself. 3 million young people like Chris, Elias, Barnes, Wolff, and King, with sacred and solemn heroism, waged a war to promote the American spirit, and what they paid was to reshape the spiritual foundation of society. And moral standards, re-establishing trust in the country and government, and repairing the hurt and divided national feelings. The film reminds people not to forget this national experience, not to avoid and forget this historical lesson.
In order to realize the original intention of the film, Stone reproduced the Vietnam battlefield as much as possible. The "Military Club" seems to bring the audience back to Vietnam in the late 1960s. The soldiers who passed by the god of death during the day felt a sense of timely pleasure at night. But under the surface of unhappiness and unhappiness, they can't conceal their worries about tomorrow and the future. The most typical and common way is to take drugs. The illusion caused by marijuana has become the best place for these people to numb themselves and escape from reality. Whether it is dancing, listening to music, or playing cards and exercising, whether it is black or white, everyone regards this club as a safe haven. Everyone wants to relax their nervous nerves while living here. The holiday-like atmosphere in the club accurately reflects the mentality of these soldiers.
There are many descriptions of the war exhaustion of American soldiers in the film. The soldiers know what it means to spend every day in this place in Vietnam: Kim calculates that he will have 39 days before his term of service expires, and Junior will have to endure 92 days. Sergeant O'Neill is a veteran. He had an ominous premonition in the frequent fighting and asked Barnes to take three days off. When the gunfire blocked the position, O'Neal protected himself with Sonny's body, and Francis himself wounded his leg with a bayonet, and could return home because of a second injury. These make people really feel that the sergeants are living like years and have no alternative, and their fear and dislike of the Vietnam War.
In the play, Stone structured the film in the form of the first person Chris’ oral diary and his narration, which not only recorded Chris’ mental journey, but also saw the state of the soldiers and the entire battlefield through his narration. For example, when the recruit Chris arrived at the station, the veteran urged him to dig fortifications. At this time Chris narrated: "I remember a writer said that there is no reason in hell, and this place full of opposition is hell." After getting along with black soldiers, he wrote in his diary: "They are forgotten by society. Most of the people come from the bottom of the society and have only attended two years of middle school at most. It is these dirty and unfortunate poor people who are fighting for our country. They call themselves the land, because the land can accommodate the most precious thing in the world-the soul In the film, Chris’ dialogue with people and things in reality abounds in the form of letter reading and inner monologue. As Chris continues to narrate and comment on what he sees and hears, he guides the story to develop in depth. This way of narration not only relaxes the rhythm of the film, but also gives people a cordial and authentic feeling.
The music and photography of the film are indispensable, both of which are in harmony with the theme of the film in setting off the environmental and psychological atmosphere. The helicopter overlooked the scene of Elias being besieged. At the end, the battlefield was shot from the plane. The herringbone corpses were formed into a large round pit, which left a lingering impression.
"Field Platoon" has a former Marine Corps training commander as the technical adviser for the film. Before the filming started, he led all members of the film crew to the Philippine jungle for several weeks of extremely arduous field training, allowing the cast and crew to truly experience the feeling of living and fighting in the jungle. So far, no other film can capture the look and feel of the Vietnam War so convincingly, and recognize the cruelty and mistakes of the Vietnam War so convincingly. It should be noted that "Field Platoon" reproduces the war from the perspective of the Americans. The emphasis here is on the negative impact of the war on the Americans. For the Vietnamese people who have suffered from ten years of war, "Field Platoon" underestimated and ignored the material and spiritual sacrifices of the other side of the war. Following "Field Platoon", Stone also filmed "Born on the Fourth of July" (1989), which shows that the disabled veterans of the Vietnam War suffered physical and mental torture and joined the anti-war ranks, and "Born on the Fourth of July" (1989), which describes the war from the perspective of Vietnamese women. "Heaven and Earth" (1993) formed his "Vietnam War Trilogy", but the achievements of the latter two did not surpass that of "Field Platoon".
View more about Platoon reviews
