Apocalypse Now Redux

I watched Apocalypse Now Redux as soon as I finished Heart of Darkness. It was actually a stroke of luck. Context is important here. 

The first bit of context is that Apocalypse Now is a movie based on Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Instead of Africa, the backdrop of the story was the Vietnam War with American soldiers instead of the Belgian sailors. It was created by Francis Ford Coppola—he made the Godfather.

The movie stars Captain Willard, played by Martin Sheen, to play the role of Marlow, the sailor from the Heart of Darkness. Willard takes a crew of U.S. troops on a patrol boat to travel up the Nung River to find Colonel Kurtz, who went rogue, and assassinate him. 

It was a depiction of flawed people—basically, humans—in a flawed situation. The entire war appeared to be FUBAR. The characters in the movie knew it and the viewers realized it soon enough. 

I had no idea what Apocalypse Now was other than it was a Vietnam War movie and that Coppola was willing to go broke making the movie. It was midway into the movie that I realized the movie was actually an adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Then, how was it that I found myself sitting through a 3-hour film about something I had a near-zero idea about? 

Time for the second bit of context. My favourite book of 2021 was Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential. I became obsessed with Bourdain throughout 2020 and 2021, watching most of No Reservations, The Layover and Parts Unknown and every Youtube interview I could find using the “20min+" filter. 

On a flight near the end of 2021, I watched the Bourdain documentary, Roadrunner. With it came the references to Bourdain’s love for Apocalypse Now and the Heart of Darkness. Then, it clicked with me that Dan Harmon of Community and Rick & Morty Fame loved Apocalypse Now. Harmon had been my obsession in 2020 as I binged the archives of Harmon Town. 

Soon after, I saw that Netflix was going to have Apocalypse Now Redux on January 2, 2022. It was a nice bit of coincidence—or fate if I were to believe the universe was grooming special-ole-me for two years to get ready to watch this movie. 

The context was important because my reaction to the movie was: meh. 

I understand it’s sinful to say anything but a glowing review for the movie because so many artists love Apocalypse Now. But it’s apparent my influences were often Americans from a certain generation—not just Bourdain and Harmon. 

They were (and are) all creators I admire and it was in the hope of getting closer to them that I watched the movie. I had no expectations other than to feel something profound by the end of it. But it wasn’t the emotional swing as I thought it might be given its popularity amongst esteemed creatives. 

With such an admission, the artist community might deem me as destined for mediocrity because I can’t recognize greatness. That’s fine. But, given my reaction towards the movie, I started to wonder what the impact the Vietnam War might’ve had on the generation of artists who were born decades before me. 

They were a generation that had grandparents who achieved glory in WWII and parents who witnessed America destroying countries unnecessarily during the Cold War. It was generations of opposites. While the U.S. were saviours in WWII, they were invaders in the Vietnam War. 

They won a war as the good guys and lost a war as the bad guys. I imagine such a dichotomy would have a large impact on the people of a nation. That’s also why I think Heart of Darkness was such an impactful book for that generation as well—often the same people who loved Apocalypse Now loved Heart of Darkness.

They are both stories of dominance. Whether it was the European superiors entering Africa with their advanced technology, looking to pillage and calling the native inhabitants barbarians and savages, or what the Americans did to the Vietnamese. 

The book and movie showed the dark side of such actions. It showed the lack of glory and the raw disgusting nature of these “powerful” people. They were no different than the savages they thought they were superior to. Their motivations and behaviours were flawed and primal. They merely had the arrogance of technology creating an illusion of superiority in intelligence and civility. 

I think it’s a movie that hits a unique group of people from a specific time period who were trained to think about a certain ideal and the realization of truth smacking them in the face. After all, doesn’t the power of art reside in the audience’s ability to relate with the creation? 

I’m not saying the movie was bad. It had its merits. It tackled similar themes to that of the novel it was based on. There were no heroes or moments of hope. 

Seeing the U.S. patrol boat sailing deeper and deeper into chaos in search of Kurtz felt like I was sailing deeper in my mind towards my subconscious. It was one of the reasons why I couldn’t stop the movie.

I wanted it to act as the drug that would take me on a journey to a place I might have a hard time getting to alone. That may also be the reason why I didn’t think the movie was the masterpiece many thought it was. Because, by the end of the movie and my mental journey, what I felt and was left with was nothing to awe and jeer about.