Terrence Malick's long-awaited return after a 20-year hiatus from the
cinema is a triumph of a film, a war movie which wipes the floor with
Saving Private Ryan. The comparison is revealing: Spielberg's film is
very much a film about the Normandy Landings (or at the very most WWII),
while Malick's tackles war as a universal phenomenon, and also offers
almost pantheistic meditations on man's place in nature. Boasting the
best photography and music of any film in the Nineties, it's a
remorseless work of art, a true auteur's vision, and a masterpiece.
