We saw the movie Across The Universe on Saturday. I thought it was a very interesting artistic representation of the Vietnam era. If you haven’t seen trailers, virtually all the sound track is Beatles songs.
My favorite provocative image was young US soldiers in Vietnam carrying a huge statue of liberty on their shoulders and singing “It’s too heavy” (I forgot what song that was from). It was powerfully ironic that what was supposed to bring freedom turned into a burden too heavy to bear, that all fell on the shoulders of these young men, involuntarily drafted.
The drafting into the army scene was excellently done, I thought. And the ’strawberry fields’ scene, which juxtaposed war images with someone creating violent art (in red - with strawberries and red paint) because he was upset. And “let it be” sung to a backdrop of riots and funerals was very powerful.
It’s had mixed reviews. For me the best scenes in it made it well worth seeing. It made me think about what it must have been like to live in those times.
09-25-2007 |
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