Title: The Deer Hunter (1978)

Starring: Robert Di Niro, Christopher Walken, John Savage, John Cazale, Meryl Streep and George Dzundza

Rating: 10/10

Why didn’t I watch this so much sooner??

This film was fantastic, and I don’t say that about many films – definitely up there with my favourites.

It focuses a group of steel workers who are conscripted to fight in the Vietnam war, and follows their lives before, during and after. The Vietnam War was something I learnt about in GCSE and was something I found extremely intriguing. As with any war, you have to see something or visit something, such as the war memorials in Flanders for those who died in WWI, to fully understand the sheer scale and atrocity which war has left behind. I have never been to Vietnam, or seen a memorial in America, but this film managed to give me some insight to the pain and trauma the war caused not only for those fighting, but those who were affected ‘second handed’.

This film is upsetting, there’s no getting around that, but it’s what makes it so great and easy to love. I don’t love it because it’s about war or anything like that, but I feel like it has (cue cliche) connected with me in some sense. It’s made me realise, as much as it can, the true horrors of war. By focusing on their time serving in Vietnam, you choke up seeing the way people can actually treat other human beings.

Moreover, it’s the time after the war has finished which affected me the most, as I’m sure it does most other people. The utterly heartbreaking scene (no spoilers) is one I’m sure will stay with me for a long time, especially when I come across the Vietnam war in my university course of American History.

This is a film I will definitely watch again and would strongly recommend to anyone.