What struck me about Apocalypse Now midway through the film was how timeless it remains. What I mean by that is, most other films made over 40 years ago have an unmistakeable feel to them which betrays their age. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Apocalypse Now could just as easily be a more recent endeavour by an independent filmmaker, and I'd totally believe it.
The story follows a fairly common structure of journeying through various sets, each more perilous than the last, in pursuit of a final destination. I've seen this repeated through other films I've seen this year (We Bury the Dead and Civil War come to mind), but I would be very interested to find out which films pioneered this, and how mainstream this approach to storytelling was in film when Apocalypse Now came out.
Buried under the critique of the mindless violence and brutality performed with impunity by the US Military in Vietnam is a tale of journeying between worlds. The world where we begin this journey is one with a facade of order, where military hierarchies are respected and applying for a spot with the Airborne division in your 30s is considered akin to madness. From this world which we know best, Apocalypse Now carries us downriver to another that slowly strips away the hypocrisy of the world that came before - the hypocrisy of shooting a civilian and offering aid afterwards, of clearing out a village with mass civilian casualties all to enjoy the surf, of blasting Ride of the Valkyries en route to blast napalm bombs. The wild part is that we still see this happen today when we open the metaphorical newspaper, and we choose to shrug our shoulders and look away, for confronting the horror is not something we have time for in 2024.
In this second world, civilization is in its rawest state, a tribal society that worships one individual as its natural leader. They have embraced the horror - the horror of man's cruelty to one another - instead of looking away and distracting themselves with surfing, pornography, guitar, and songs around a campfire.
Apocalypse Now is a war film that goes beyond the critique of violence which I have now come to expect as the baseline from any decent attempt at dealing with the topic of war. Truly a special film that will stay with me for a long time. There is one particular shot that has stayed with me, that of forest dwarfing man, which I will leave you with. Enjoy.
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