Saving Private Ryan

16 May 2005 18:05 pm

I kind of regret that I didn’t get to witness the full impact of the film when it came out. Well not regret as it wasn’t really my choice when I was born but it would have been interesting to witness the impact this film had – an average score of 97%, this film was clearly groundbreaking.

It would seem from the outset that this film is more a film about Vietnam that just happens to be set in World War II. Until recently every World War II film has been a blaze a glory, in fact pretty much all war films are. The only acceptation to the rule is Vietnam with films like Platoon showing the hoarse gritty realities of war, namely because a glory film simply wouldn’t work in a war that many consider the US lost.

Among the new wave of films to portray what war is really like is of course the subject in question, Saving Private Ryan. After the first five minutes of Spielberg stamped opening the movie begins as the US forces land on the beach in France. From the moment the front of the boat opens the first five or six men are gunned down by a German machine gun. Welcome to the real World War II.

The film commands powerful emotion and respect. In the first twenty minutes I picked up two moments – one when medics stop the bleeding only for the guy to be shot in the head moments later and a second similar incident a few minutes later, which would normally have been comical in most films, did nothing to change the sombre mood of the film.

It isn’t just the brutality that really adds the mood to the film however – the attitude of the men, or rather killing machines as they have now become, is also shocking, ranging from shooting Germans who have surrendered to the cry “don’t shoot, let them burn” when the flame browser is used against the German murder hole on the beach.

As well as the mood, the film itself is easily as brutal. Head shots are every few minutes, legs and arms being blown off are numerous, indeed one solider is actually shown picking up his severed arm as blood streams from the stump where his other arm used to be.

To complete the opening sequence, the men take some time to gaze upon the view of the beach – now litter with corpses and being washed over with water that is dark red from the amount of blood that has been released into it.

Moving past the opening sequence, Captain Miller (Tom Hanks) is given a mission to recover Private James Ryan who is a paratrooper somewhere in France who the army plan to send home due to his other three brothers being killed. The basic plot is about the search for him that follows.

Hanks makes a great captain – his human side shines through with his worries that his wife won’t even recognise him after what he has been through and his hand shakes as he tries to hold himself together through the horrors of war.

The film ends with one final battle. After finding Private Ryan they make a last stand at a bridge as the German tanks roll in.

However I would not go as far as to say all the glory has been stripped from the film. As much as the film has moved forward it is still US troops going in and winning the war. The film begins and ends with the US flag although with a much more sombre tone than would normally accompany it.

Saving Private Ryan is none the less a hoarse and realistic portrayal of the war and above that it is a brilliant film. The more you think about the movie the more it will get you thinking. Definitely not one to be missed.

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