WARNING: "spoilers" spoilers below I guess it's about balance than realism. It could be expectations too, and that I went in with the wrong ones. A lot of effort clearly went into shots and framing, sets, and visuals. The moments I had issue with seemed to not have nearly the same level of consideration. That's just something I pick up on, for whatever reasons, with my own personal sensibilities.
I don't mean to suggest I expect complete realism, but the movie didn't offer me the idea that it was fanciful or of an epic hero survival tale. IMO, he didn't survive his trials so much as the writers just made sure he didn't die. There is a subtle distinction there, I suppose, but it weighs heavily with me.
It takes place in war. In war is death. Also in war are inexperienced youth likely traumatized to a point that common sense, skill, and situational awareness are out the door. There were scenes that showed that, and those moments were well done. I did question myself to recognize the likelihood of these "boys" just not being able to perform under the extreme burdens that war places on them; but, like I noted, it was just so frequent. I could believe in a few close calls. How many shots were fired at him, from a sniper, as he stood still? Sure, exhaustion affects aim, but that it happened so many times, with every other enemy encounter, was a problem.
Too, earlier in the film Schofield was shown to be the one of the two that was wise enough to evaluate their situation by asking Blake to slow down to "think about this" and to come up with a plan, offering to wait until they had the cover of night. Schofield was the one that found the trip wire in the bunker. He was the one that sensed danger in the cherry orchard farm house. These cues to highlight his awareness of his surroundings and of himself were mostly useless after the fact when fate/destiny more or less took over for him. For example, not recognizing the very high risk that a lone bucket full of milk in an otherwise obliterated farm would not have been wired for explosives. Or at least that he probably should have considered it, in that he found the wire mentioned earlier in the bunker and again commenting how the Germans destroyed their own guns before retreating to keep their enemy from claiming them. He is clearly aware by that point of German tactics and traps.
Destiny. If that was the goal of the story, that sheer will alone is all powerful then I never really picked up on that. In that light, maybe Hacksaw Ridge really is a better film. I just can't get past Spider-Man dragging Vince Vaughn through a live battlefield to give it its due.
Perhaps it was divine intervention? The milk a blessing from God, like Zeus providing helm, shield, and sword to protect Perseus. The commander of the Yorks did literally bless them with his flask of liquor as they were climbing from the safety of the trench. Is that what was happening? Perhaps this is all some sort of spiritual allegory that I missed. If so, then show me more as I didn't experience that without digging pretty deep here to share some of my thoughts and processes when watching this movie. I would be interested to watch it again with that perspective. Just to see where it goes. I'm curious if anyone has any review links where anything like that is mentioned?
Back to me ranting....
This is kind of what goes on in my head when watching most things:
It's like a movie in its entirety creates ...a sine wave of ups and downs. Some are higher or lower than others, but for the length of a movie they sort of average out to create a rhythm. Depending on how that movie (or song, or poem, or personal daily routine) presents the different elements contained within it (plot, framing, set design, sound, technical approach, etc.), you can pick up patterns and expectations based on those patterns.
Take for example a 10-minute film of flowers gently waving in a breeze. Maybe after 2 minutes of it you begin to realize OK, this is gentle. It's calming. After 5 minutes that is more or less confirmed. At the 8 minute mark, though, things are interrupted by static then a 20-second clip of some lion gruesomely eating its prey appears. That does not fit, and breaks the average that the rest of the film implied as standard. Maybe it was intentional. It's hard to believe that this example would not be, but who knows. It has its place, sure. In the case of this movie, however, those scenes in which Schofield is immune to the dangers around him (as frequent as they were) were similar spikes for me and really distracted me from what all else of the movie had been presented so well.
Those scenes, if handled slightly differently in my opinion, could have been more practical given the gravity of the story and handling of most every other aspect of the film---aspects that found harmony in each other with the exception of the few hundred paragraphs above, of course.
I guess it's about balance than realism. It could be expectations too, and that I went in with the wrong ones. A lot of effort clearly went into shots and framing, sets, and visuals. The moments I had issue with seemed to not have nearly the same level of consideration. That's just something I pick up on, for whatever reasons, with my own personal sensibilities.
I don't mean to suggest I expect complete realism, but the movie didn't offer me the idea that it was fanciful or of an epic hero survival tale. IMO, he didn't survive his trials so much as the writers just made sure he didn't die. There is a subtle distinction there, I suppose, but it weighs heavily with me.
It takes place in war. In war is death. Also in war are inexperienced youth likely traumatized to a point that common sense, skill, and situational awareness are out the door. There were scenes that showed that, and those moments were well done. I did question myself to recognize the likelihood of these "boys" just not being able to perform under the extreme burdens that war places on them; but, like I noted, it was just so frequent. I could believe in a few close calls. How many shots were fired at him, from a sniper, as he stood still? Sure, exhaustion affects aim, but that it happened so many times, with every other enemy encounter, was a problem.
Too, earlier in the film Schofield was shown to be the one of the two that was wise enough to evaluate their situation by asking Blake to slow down to "think about this" and to come up with a plan, offering to wait until they had the cover of night. Schofield was the one that found the trip wire in the bunker. He was the one that sensed danger in the cherry orchard farm house. These cues to highlight his awareness of his surroundings and of himself were mostly useless after the fact when fate/destiny more or less took over for him. For example, not recognizing the very high risk that a lone bucket full of milk in an otherwise obliterated farm would not have been wired for explosives. Or at least that he probably should have considered it, in that he found the wire mentioned earlier in the bunker and again commenting how the Germans destroyed their own guns before retreating to keep their enemy from claiming them. He is clearly aware by that point of German tactics and traps.
Destiny. If that was the goal of the story, that sheer will alone is all powerful then I never really picked up on that. In that light, maybe Hacksaw Ridge really is a better film. I just can't get past Spider-Man dragging Vince Vaughn through a live battlefield to give it its due.
Perhaps it was divine intervention? The milk a blessing from God, like Zeus providing helm, shield, and sword to protect Perseus. The commander of the Yorks did literally bless them with his flask of liquor as they were climbing from the safety of the trench. Is that what was happening? Perhaps this is all some sort of spiritual allegory that I missed. If so, then show me more as I didn't experience that without digging pretty deep here to share some of my thoughts and processes when watching this movie. I would be interested to watch it again with that perspective. Just to see where it goes. I'm curious if anyone has any review links where anything like that is mentioned?
Back to me ranting....
This is kind of what goes on in my head when watching most things:
It's like a movie in its entirety creates ...a sine wave of ups and downs. Some are higher or lower than others, but for the length of a movie they sort of average out to create a rhythm. Depending on how that movie (or song, or poem, or personal daily routine) presents the different elements contained within it (plot, framing, set design, sound, technical approach, etc.), you can pick up patterns and expectations based on those patterns.
Take for example a 10-minute film of flowers gently waving in a breeze. Maybe after 2 minutes of it you begin to realize OK, this is gentle. It's calming. After 5 minutes that is more or less confirmed. At the 8 minute mark, though, things are interrupted by static then a 20-second clip of some lion gruesomely eating its prey appears. That does not fit, and breaks the average that the rest of the film implied as standard. Maybe it was intentional. It's hard to believe that this example would not be, but who knows. It has its place, sure. In the case of this movie, however, those scenes in which Schofield is immune to the dangers around him (as frequent as they were) were similar spikes for me and really distracted me from what all else of the movie had been presented so well.
Those scenes, if handled slightly differently in my opinion, could have been more practical given the gravity of the story and handling of most every other aspect of the film---aspects that found harmony in each other with the exception of the few hundred paragraphs above, of course.