Love and War

[matthew.percy at utoronto.ca]

> P sez:
> > 
> > Almassy and Katharine in "The English Patient" seem to have suggested
> > comparison to Rick and Ilsa of "Casablanca" fame. But I haven't yet
> > seen any reviewer referring to our Roger and Jessica's doomed love
> > against a backdrop of total war.
> 
Good comparison.  Probably the only thing I really liked about the film, but
I was impressed with the (very Pynchonian) depiction of war throughout 
the film: war as a fact of life.  The scene of the invasion of Tobruk, 
where the Brits try to destroy all the "evidence" as it were, German tanks
and parachutists outside storming the city while Willem Dafoe is greeted by
a woman who asks him if he'll "come by later tonight" struck me as one of the
more interesting representation of war in recent Hollywood memory.  War
not as epic event, but as a routinized historical event.  To quote Mr. 
Pynchon:  "The real War goes on all the time"...  

Rambling and killing time,

Matt