REVIEWS PH fiims 1 Platoon PLATOON. Starring Charlie Sheen and Tom Berenger. Directed by Oliver Stone. At local theatres. Chnis Taylor sure is one weird guy. Safely middle class and able to get at least a draft deferment by doing to college, the 18-year-old has instead opted for duty in Vietnam. In doing so, he joins battle-scarred veterans who have had no choice. Taken from the ghettos and mill towns of America, they are poor, uneducated, frequently Black members of the working class for whom exploitation has taken on a new dimension. Chris (Charlie Sheen) is an idealist who believes he shouldn’t stay at home while others are out defending democracy and America in the jungles of Vietnam. The year is 1967 and Chris’s ideals are about to be blown apart hike a hand grenade. Directer and writer Oliver Stone was a “‘Chris” back in the Sixties when most people in North America still believed that was what the war was all about. It has taken him the better part of 20 years to tell his story, in his latest film, Platoon. In doing so, he may be doing us — particularly the youth of this continent — a real service. It is an understatement to say that Platoon is not, like so many of the U.S. film industry’s productions these days, a movie glorifying war. Coming on the heels of Stone’s recent release, Salvador, it is as uncompromising in its brutal depictions of combat. Platoon only lacks the politics of the earlier film to explain the carnage. Viewing Platoon makes it easy to see why Stone took so long to tell his story. Such senseless slaughter, carried out almost blindly in a hell of dense jungle illuminated only by flare and the flash of artillery fire, takes a psychological toll. And, of course, there’s the politics behind the mad- ness. : During the period of the actual war, Western filmmak- Tom Berenger and Li Thi Van in a scene from Oliver Stone’s Platoon. ers barely touched on the subject, except to produce politi- cal monstrosities such as The Green Berets. Films of the immediate post-Vietnam era gave only faint critiques of the war — with the exception of a little-known B-grade offering called the Boys in Company C — and never dared to say that the Vietnam War was wrong, corrupt and led by incompetents. Millions may have been making that point — and the point that the conflict was an imperialist war designed to maintain U.S. control in Southeat Asia — in hundreds of demonstrations and marches around the world, but their message never found its way on to the big screen. : Platoon is what Company C might have been had the producers of that film had more money. Stone’s lush, almost sensuous photography makes the hell of Vietnam seem that much more immediate. Chris sheds his illusions about Vietnam, after seeing some friends dispatched by snipers’ bullets and booby- trapped bunkers and witnesing a My Lai type of atrocity in which the wife of a village leader is summarily executed The horror of war without the ‘why’ and some children are raped by U.S. troops. He realizes that the sole object of the months remaining until his tour is finished is simple survival. Chris also discovers the war within the war — that fought by two factions in his platoon. The side Chris has befriended consists of relatively easy-going, dope-smoking individuals who want to get out of the war with some dignity and their lives. The opposition, led by a scar-faced sergeant (Tom Berenger), have embraced the callousness, cruelty and corruption of the war, and will stop at nothing — including murdering colleagues — to get their way. Platoon’s major disappointment is that we are never told, and its protagonists never learn, the “why” of Viet- nam. Devoid of its historical context, the film leaves us with the simple message that “war is hell.” This is particularly disappointing because director Stone has shown us that he does understand the politics of a situation. In Salvador, which remains a much more power- ful film because it balances the gut-wrenching war scenes with filled-out sketches of several key players in the drama, audiences are given a reason for the madness. And they get to see that cynical conflict through the eyes of the libera- tion forces and the war’s victims, making theatre-goers aware that the latter two are often one and the same. That may well explain why Salvador had only a brief, little publicized run at local theatres (iti is, however, availa- ble on videotape) while Platoon enjoys top billing on the theatre advertisement pages. Platoon’s key value lies in its realistic depiction of mod- ern warfare. Inundated with a plethora of Rambo-style films which glorify battle while delivering the most base of politically reactionary messages, the young audiences trooping into theatres to see Platoon at least get the reality. It’s strong medicine, but necessary. — Dan Keeton — Rims Return to Dresden The road back from destruction RETURN TO DRESDEN. (Retour a Dresden). 1986 National Film Board doc- umentary by director/cameraman Martin Duckworth. Featuring Squadron Leader C.G. “Giff” Gifford, DFC. Feb. 13 marks the anniverary of the 1945 bombing of Dresden in what is now the German Democratic Republic. Long before World War IT Dresden was known for its mangificent art treasures and architectural splendor. In the joint British/U.S. bomber operation “thunderclap”, the heart of the city was reduced to ashes. Conservative estimates put the death toll at 35,000, including countless refugees who had sought the city centre. In 1985, C.G. “Giff” Gifford returned to Dresden on the 40th anniversary of the bombing and particpated in the public memorial in the central square to those who died in the raid, and the celebration of the reconstruction and reopening of the famous Semper Opera House which had been des- troyed in the bombing. Present also were leaders of the German Democratic Repub- lic, veterans and delegates from many cities of Europe that had been bombed including London and Leningrad. With Gifford is Martin Duckworth shooting on-the-spot footage. The action of the film is set against the backdrop of Carl Maria von Weber’s Der Freischutz (The Marksman) presented at the rebuilt opera house. This was the last opera played before the fatal bombing. Cuts of scenes from this opera and its major themes are interwoven with historic 1945 footage of the Dresden bombing, the Lan- caster bombers, and scenes from the Dresden landscape. These find their coun- terpoint in Gifford’s painful but open exchanges with Dresden citizens in the square at the memorial meeting. The 10 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JANUARY 28, 1987 camera work is outstanding, and the sound- track first rate, recorded by GDR television. From the film emerges a compelling aes- thetic statement. The direct exchanges between Germans who experienced the bombings and one of the Canadians who helped to deliver the bombs, culminate in a solemn undertaking by both that a world in which such orders are given and carried out should never prevail again — that such devastation prevented, whether delivered by conventional or nuclear arms. The bombing of Dresden raised controv- ersy from its inception. The city was virtu- ally undefended and had been bombed only once before. Bomber crews expressed their uneasiness about their mission, because of distance, and because of stories that the city was crowded with refugees, and that Chur- chill had ordered it on political grounds. Time and new documentation have ren- dered judgement on the affair as a totally unecessary terror bombing of a civilian population, designed to break the morale of the German people, and to send a message to the Soviet Union whose Red Army was 80 miles from Dresden. Gifford tells a German woman in the film: “We were not told this (the direct targetting of civilians) was the objective. We were told that the bombs were meant for military installations and communication networks.” The film is a contribution to the unravelling of the story of those times. Giff Gifford is co-founder and chairman of Veterans Against Nuclear Arms, and is dedicating his activities to peaceful coexist- ence, the elimination of nuclear arms, and disarmament. This documentary is a pow- erful plea for world peace and coexistence, as well as challenging currently held illu- sions about the role of Churchill, and the bombing of Dresden. The film has been shown on the CBC French network, but has been rejected by CBC TV, and TV Ontario. The film deserves the widest possible audience in hall, home, or local TV networks. Because of its compression, hidden insights continue to emerge, and it is useful for the viewers to ~ see it several times. Schools, community groups and others will find this film invaluable for programs or discussions about world peace. Booking for videos or 16mm French or English prints can be made through all NFB outlets or by calling Veterans Against Nuclear Arms who will provide a speaker if requested. — Mark Frank 2. =. Massive incendiary bombing aigiig the Allies’ ‘‘Operation Thunderclap” reduced the non-military city of Dresden to ashes. At top right, C.G. “Giff” Gifford.