Deer Hunter, The (1978)

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Understandably contentious Vietnam War film. As a piece of filmmaking it is indisputably powerful: the first Russian Roulette sequence is stunning.

Its characters and themes... I'm less sure. It's hard to read as either patriotic or pro-war, but neither does it necessarily feel anti-war. It's neither historically accurate nor racially sensitive. In 2021, the hardest sell is the way that Michael (Robert De Niro) is a kind of rugged ubermensch, the ultimate masculine archetype of self-reliance, to the extent that its treatment of other characters feels like a criticism -- as though a Real Man should be able to be tortured and come out whole, should never need help or comfort. If anything, it's anti-civilization.

- Sam - 2021-02-28 23:52:52