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(KRT) The ads say the stars of "Jarhead" are Jake Gyllenhaal and Jamie Foxx, but the real MVP is Roger Deakins. Deakins, the Coen brothers' cinematographer of choice, gives "Jarhead" a look that is unique: surreal, frightening, beautiful. Some of the images are as formally composed as Flemish paintings -- I'm thinking of a moment when Gyllenhaal sits on battle-blackened sand in the middle of Desert Storm, surrounded by a trail of sandy-white footprints in the soot -- but their placid beauty is in direct contrast to the chaos of the battle around them, and that is the story of "Jarhead." It is a movie about the madness of war, and, like previous madness-of-war movies such as "Three Kings" and "Full Metal Jacket," "Jarhead" is funny and then, suddenly, not. Once it gets its tongue out of its cheek, "Jarhead" focuses on the way war requires madness of its soldiers -- the people we send off to fight America's battles -- and then leaves them to figure out how to deal with it. "Jarhead" is overstuffed with images of blankness -- the vast desert, the pointless training exercises, the novels of Albert Camus. They all point toward the dilemma of the soldiers (Gyllenhaal, as our narrator, is the sanest of the bunch), who are taught a new set of rules when they become the few, the proud, the Marines but whose minds go blank when they have to reconcile their own morals with the morals of war. It's not an overtly political film, although references to Vietnam, the price of oil and lies the military tells soldiers are there if you feel like noticing them. Even if you don't, you can't fail to pick up on the idea that the only ones who really know what happens in a war are the people who fight it. And that what they see does not impress them. At one point, a soldier, talking about a video game but really talking about war, says, "You know what happens when you get to (the end)? Nothing. You just start all over again." I suspect some viewers will have a problem with "Jarhead's" failure to draw conclusions about war or the fact that the most stirring speech comes from a pro-combat character (Foxx, who trains Gyllenhaal). But that's not a failure; it's a deliberate choice. "Jarhead" leaves you with an empty feeling, and it is supposed to. ___ JARHEAD 3 ½ stars Directed by: Sam Mendes Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Peter Sarsgaard, Jamie Foxx Rated: R, for strong language, violence, sexual situations and nudity SHOULD YOU GO? It's provocative, and you won't see many more beautifully made films this year. ___
© 2005, St. Paul Pioneer Press (St. Paul, Minn.). Visit the World Wide Web site of the Pioneer Press at http://www.twincities.com/mld/pioneerpress/ Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services. Have a comment? Please e-mail us.© The Voice 2005 Revised 09/17/2007 02:17:13 PM — http://www.uamont.edu/Organizations/TheVoice/3_8/movie.htm |
