Beautiful. Moving, inspirational, heart-wrenching, suspenseful, Michael Cimino’s The Deer Hunter has it all. The movie begins in a small industrial town in Pennsylvania the day of Steven’s wedding, right before he ships out with his friends Mike and Nick to the Vietnam War. The movie shows their lives and happiness before the war, their ordeal in the war, and how it affected them after. While taken hostage in Vietnam, Nick, Mike, and Steven find themselves being forced to play Russian Roulette for the entertainment of their captors. After they escape, they are separated and Nick finds himself in an American hospital with amnesia. After being released, he joins a gambling circle for Russian Roulette and becomes sucked into that world. Steven loses both his legs and lives in a home for injured vets while Mike returns to his home in Pennsylvania and lives with Nick’s girlfriend.
The Deer Hunter exposes all the damage the Vietnam War inflicted on everyone it touched. I expected the movie to be entirely battle scenes in the jungle of Vietnam but was surprised by the amount that was not in Vietnam. It was honest and vulnerable but never boring. The characters were so real and relatable and interesting to watch. The experience of the Vietnam War and its over arching effect on life was and continues to be a difficult topic for many. The generation that experienced the war personally would be more deeply affected than a generation removed from the situation. Being in a removed situation, however, I still experienced a deep impact and was touched on many levels by this movie. The Deer Hunter is a beautiful and moving work of art.
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