Heart of Darkness

About a year ago, I started watching Apocalypse Now. I had just seen Midnight Cowboy, so I was weary of psychedelic mind-trips. Because of Martin Sheen's opening scene, I thought that the movie was about him going crazy. What I didn't realize is that the movie is about everyone going crazy.

Crazy in Vietnam. I had always been impatient with Vietnam war veterans, thinking that their war lacked the glamour and prestige that came with WWII. After this movie, however, one has the utmost respect and sympathy for those that made it through the Vietnam war. After all, Marlon Brando's line, "the horror," does encapsulate the film very well.

I hate summarizing, but Martin Sheen's Captain Willard, an off-duty army soldier, is assigned to kill Marlon Brando's Colonel Walter E. Kurtz. Kurtz has gone rogue in Vietnam, working his way into Cambodia with a loyal band of followers, killing all that stand in his way. He has gone insane, the military says.

But what the point of the movie is, I think, is that everybody went crazy in Vietnam. Kurtz just went so crazy that people couldn't deal.

So yes, I started watching this movie about a year ago. I got about twenty minutes in, up until a man was screaming in pain, his leg blown to pieces, begging God to help him. While not by any means gory, Apocalypse Now has some scenes that just make the blood curdle, and make wary eyes look elsewhere.

Apocalypse Now is not for the weak, it is hard, rough, and yes, a mind-trip. It shows the intensity of the insanity felt by all in Vietnam.

Though on a much different track than the lovely French films that I've watched the last two days, Apocalypse Now is chilling and, for lack of a better word, deep.

Oh, and my guilty pleasure movie today was 'Never Been Kissed.'