Regression in existence? - Apocalypse Now

What means human life? Apocalypse Now

Some of you may have seen this incredible movie. It is a diving into craziness, into the deepest part of our humanity...

The film seems to be a complete mess. It was actually the state of the shooting. It took month to the film team to shoot everything they needed in Vietnam and Cambodia and Francis Ford Coppola nearly got ruined because of this. That was a dangerous bet, but what a film after all! Coppola pushed every body, actors and team to their limits and extracted the essence of craziness that could only be found that way.

The regression of the minds in Apocalypse Now

Apocalypse Now is based on a novel, "Heart of Darkness", by Joseph Conrad. The title only reveals us that life is going to be bullied. Francis Ford Coppola transferred the hell of colonialism in Africa in the early 20th into the hell of war in Vietnam. And what an awesome idea! The characters are on a mission aiming to kill a colonel, Kurtz, become crazy (or what the army calls crazy) in the heart of the cambodian territory.

By going up the river to Kurz' camp, each of these five soldiers are going to meet their basic instinct, more and more. Because they are meeting the horror and the absurdity of existence at the contact of this war.

The meaning of this war is absurd. Killing people that didn't arm you in any way is absurd. Continue a war that is already lost is absurd. The characters are aware but in the first stage, that is not enough evident for them to become crazy. A character represents it clearly in the film. The lieutenant-colonel Bill Kilgore. He is the one that announces his attack with the music "the Ride of the Valkyries" by Wagner. He wants to surf on the battlefield and is untouchable. This character is just out of reality and never stops to make actions out of the context, absurd. And it just seems comic. It is only the first stage of the trip, the entrance of the river, when the illusions of civilisation begins to break.

Nietzsche is found in this film : when illusions are broken or are just seen as illusions, absurdity of existence begin to happen. But more than that, this is the horror that accompany the fall of the civilisation and its marks.

And this film aims at shooting down the civilisation to find the primary world, the world of nature. And the human "natural stage", the basic instincts, maybe to find the Dionysian state of becoming one with nature and everything.

The Horror!

The Horror is the central point in this movie. Not only because it is said by the most mysterious, most awaited, most charismatic and most crazy character in the movie. Kurtz aka Marlon Brando lived for month the experience of war and its atrocity. He saw and understand the Horror of the humanity, particularly when civilisation tries to hide it. The Apollonian state, fulfilled with dream and beautiful interpretations is not enough anymore to survive with an healthy mind to the war's atrocity.

The main character, Villard (Martin Sheen) is becoming mad because he is not in contact with war at first. And wandering up the river, he will come back to its killing instincts. The regular soldiers are young americans and they will know the fear of the unknown, of the dark and the thrill of killing, of stealing, of losing oneself. The young blond surfer, so esthetically beautiful is losing the count of days and night, paints his face like camouflage and catches the sun all day long because he has nothing to do but to try to become one with the nature. The cool black kid from brookline becomes a lunatic shooter, always keeping his weapon in hand an killing whatever he can because he fears the horror.

The horror seems to be everywhere and especially concentrated in Kurtz' camp, an old temple covered with bodies lying on the steps and hanging on trees. The horror of life and what human can do.

What are the conclusion on existence?

What human can do, what they are capable of, is what they are. This lesson seems to shake every positive vision on existence. Being human is not being an animal. It is far worse than that. Even covering the bad aspects with the illusion of civilisation.

And nothing seems to happen affirming life, no value can cross this wall of craziness. We are here far from Nietzsche's conclusion, or expectations.

The same beginning : leaving every illusion, every metaphysical rule. A different end : against the hope for the life-affirmative Übermensch, the pessimistic vision of the brutal and cruel human once freed from illusion.

What is the most realistic vision (if the word realistic can be used in this context or in existentialism in general)? The pessimism? We're all animal after all... Or the optimism? But Nietzsche conclusion is under condition and we must remember that its contemporary fellows were not prepared for the revelation. But in Nietzsche vision, we must elude this stage of "animal-like" behavior because we are saying that we are animal, but on what ground? What so absolute, metaphysics? he Nietzschean vision seems to be not easy to fight in any case...

And in the end, the main character dive into craziness but goes back to the civilisation...