The Thin Red Line - Anna Harrison

The Thin Red is a film about soldiers fighting against the Japanese army on Guadalcanal, an island near Australia. The protagonist, Private Witt, struggles with the idea of dying in this war. He spends much of the movie in a contemplative state, watching nature and the natives of the island as he considers life and death surrounding the war. He has gone AWOL a number of times and is now forced to confront the issue in battle.

This film communicates the idea of the Holy through the war, as war can often lead people to confront their beliefs.  The Holy can be seen as a mask in relation to war, as such a traumatic time as war can reveal a deeper understanding of what it means to live and die. The Holy is able to lift off the mask in a way to uncover the knowledge behind it. Visual symbolism in the film also refers to this mask. The tall grass conceals the soldiers as they wait for the conflict to begin, and once they stand above the grassy shield, they must confront the violent reality of war. In one scene, there is a makeshift graveyard on the island with crosses as headstones. 

The film also references tremendum in the horrors of war. Visually, there is imagery of blood, smoke, and fire. Soldiers are often heard screaming in pain as they die from their wounds. 

Nature and war are closely connected, and this film shows this in several ways. There are numerous shots of injured birds and a tied-up alligator like the soldiers in the war. These animals are struggling to survive just like the soldiers fighting. At one point, a character is referred to as “dying slow as a tree”. It is impossible to separate nature and war. Battlegrounds always take place in nature, and the natural state of man, as believed by Thomas Hobbes, is that of violence. The final scene of the film shows a sprout coming from a coconut. New life can come from something as horrible as war.