The Deer Hunter (1978)

Alright, here's how it is. Main review takes up a huge chunk of the blog. However, if you're looking for a quick synopsis of what I think, the bottom paragraph and mark out of 5 should suffice. Enjoy the review, or better yet: go see the film and enjoy that!

The Deer Hunter is a dark tale following the lives of a group of friends through their lives from marriage, to war, to death. Showing a grim and far more horrifying side to the Vietnam War than most others, this is a film that takes the violence and embraces it as an inevitable part of life.

Knowing that The Deer Hunter was a film about the war in Vietnam, the opening is surprising. It begins on a cold blue morning and shows some men working in a factory. There is no glamour put to their work. It’s a factory where the men work for their money. As a group of men leave the factory, they say their goodbyes to their colleagues and wander of down to the bar for a drink. The following 40 minutes are some of the strangest ever committed to celluloid. Put simply, it’s a wedding and an after party. But considering it’s a film that is about Vietnam, it feels remarkably out of place. It is more than likely just my expectations getting the better of me.
When looked at in its own right, the wedding is superbly played out. It’s apparent from the start that the town is quite a small one and this feeling of cosiness is emphasised superbly by some establishing shots showing everyone is focused on the wedding. Generally, the point is that it works.
When the after party kicks in, the film starts to seem more like a comedy than anything. Short of a scuffle between a couple of characters, it really is quite funny. Whilst watching the after-party and wedding scenes, it quite frankly does seem a little aimless. It feels almost as if it’s about to start dragging but when this happens, it suddenly manages to kick out something new to set somebody giggling.

Despite the feeling of aimlessness, the extended use of such a celebratory event does manage to grab hold of the audience and whether you like it or not, you start to care for the characters. That and any film that has Robert De Niro running down a street in just his underpants is destined for greatness.

As a slight interlude from the wedding there’s a few examples of genius location scouting. The mountains, for the titled Deer Hunt, are sheer awesomeness. The scenery is beautiful and it is very nearly difficult to keep track of the plot with such a fantastical locale constantly grabbing your attention.

There are few scenes in the film with really great dialogue because the film itself is generally such a realistic example of the Vietnam War. But there is one scene that is thoroughly believable up in the mountains with, what will forever be pondered as the greatest line in the movie: “Stanley, see this? This is this. This ain't something else. This is this. From now on, you're on your own.”
On paper, it’s a ridiculous line, but with De Niro speaking, it’s foolproof.
Michael Cimino thoroughly deserved his Best Director Oscar for this film as well. The aforementioned scene is just one example of perfect tension building, a convention of film which is relied upon heavily in this film and never fails to actually thrill the audience. Hell, it doesn’t thrill you, it actually scares you.

When Vietnam finally appears on screen, it doesn’t disappoint. Moments in, it shows exactly what the Americans where facing when a Vietnamese soldier finds a family in a hole and drops a grenade in there before running off. There’s no preparation for it and is so harsh it really grasps the audience. When you then see Michael Vronosky (Robert De Niro) torch the soldier alive, it really is visually powerful. It’s shocking partially because the film shows the brutality of the death so well, but mostly because for the past hour the audience has gotten used to Michael being a fun drunken fool, not a killing machine. The juxtaposition is completely undeniable and very hard to watch.

The tension is really built up throughout the Russian Roulette scenes. Quite simply, it has got to be up among the most disturbing pieces of cinema ever. That tension that Cimino knows how to drive up is pushed into over-drive. It really makes you wonder whether the real horror within the war was even within the conflict.

Christopher Walken is remarkable in The Deer Hunter. Even if you hadn’t felt anything throughout the film, his scenes really force you to feel something. The man oozes potential and he exploits that to an unbelievably stunning effect. It’s really no wonder that he’s one of the most respected actors in Hollywood today having put films such as this under his belt.

A deep theme within The Deer Hunter is the effect of the war on the soldiers as they return home. Whether it was handled well and how hard it must be to return straight to the comfort of one’s home after all the horror of the fighting. How as much as somebody might want things to be normal, people change their opinions of them and how everything would change.

In terms of film-making, the lighting throughout it superb to the extent that I was wondering if Candy Suxx was going to burst in with a machine gun and a rocket launcher strapped to her back. The music had a very unconventional approach and it certainly felt as if less was more. The music had a power to it which was that it took a back seat to the emotion of the characters.

The final scenes are nothing short of incredible as a brief look at the seedy side of Vietnam outside of the war and a climax to be remembered for decades to come. It really is quite harrowing and is actually an unpleasant experience to sit through.

Finally there is the ending which although unnecessary provides a real ending. It’s quiet and it’s painful, but there’s a raw happiness to it.

Harrowing and painful tale about the effects of the Vietnam War on people, as well as an honest look at the lives of people from before the war right through to their ways of coping upon returning home. Unbelievably powerful, if not a little long at the beginning. Worth seeing, but only for those who can stomach some real unpleasantness.

4/5