Have you ever seen a film that made you think about it days after seeing it? The opening scene is a masterpiece in itself, and when you see it for the first time it sticks with you for a long time. It takes place in 1969 and is about a Special Forces Colonel Walter E. Kurtz (Marlon Brando) gone rouge and according to the information from the military now commands his own army of local tribes in neutral Cambodia as their god. He is performing illegal attacks so the U.S. army sends a group of soldiers lead by veteran Benjamin L. Willard (Martin Sheen) to terminate him. They travel in a boat through the enemy jungle and are constantly being attacked by enemy forces.
The film focuses more on the human psyche rather than the events in the war. This is shown through the declining mental stability of the soldiers all through the movie. How do the horrors of war affect man? According to the director –Francis Coppola the war makes you want to surf on the waves created by bomb explosions in the rivers of war-torn Vietnam as one very memorable character, Sergeant Kilgore is trying to do. The further they go, the crazier people they meet and the crazier they become themselves.
At the end we are treated with an insane looking Marlon Brando and his socking lectures about the cruelty of humanity in one of the most mezmerizing perfomances to date. Apocalypse Now is a wonderfully twisted thought of man and his hidden, but true animalistic nature.
Napisao: Frano Pahor