movie review - Apocalypse Now
the journal of Michael Werneburg
twenty-seven years and one million words
Toronto, 1997.06.21
Old and weird, but still as nightmarish as I suspect it originally was. This is a Vietnam flick with little illusion to why America lost. The main character is sent on a mission to kill a rogue member of the same US forces. He's way up river and is thought to have gone native. But it's just PTSD; about a billion tonnes of it.
There is some great photography here, and it makes full use of the pop music of the day in what would become a lasting cliche involving helicopters and the Rolling Stones. There are many iconic scenes in this thing that virtually everyone knows. It really is quite a unique movie.
Strongly recommended. Despite/because of all its madness.