Close combat*

Classification in categories

• Battle and nature
• Battle and technology
• Suffering / victim / sacrifice

 

After fearful anticipation in the face of a space of horror has been established, it is transformed into increasing tension that suddenly changes into ecstasy and the excitement of battle. The battle itself proceeds in stages from the triumphant dissolution of boundaries to flowing chains of movement and finally to the difficulty of battle for individual, inert bodies. The scene is shaped primarily by the rhythm and the editing and can also be clearly perceived in developments on the sound track.

In the previous scenes, the group started one final offense and took a break during which the expectation of this scene’s Japanese attack was already the subject of discussion. At first, two separate spatial and framing principles are established; one for the group and one for the enemy. The rhythm of the editing raises the expectation that these two spaces will collide. The antagonism of the space can be found in the horror image of the flatness of the jungle in which the enemy can be found and close-ups of the group in which expectation is seen more and more clearly. The sound track is horror music, fought by the Sergeant’s orders—the tension culminates in a moment of sudden silence (>EMU 1).

The first phase of the battle is the development of a collision ending in a fusion of the antagonistic spaces. In this unit the completed establishment of the group is one with the ecstatic audiovisual delimitation and the overwhelming gunfire and noise of the battle—also written onto the close-ups of the soldiers faces—and with the power of the explosions that destroy nature and the enemy (>EMU 2).

The second phase of the battle is the dissolution of the space of action that takes place after the two spaces are fused. A chain of movement that overcomes all hurdles ends in the spatial separation of fighting individuals, in the loss of a cohesive overview and an environment in which the enemy is everywhere. The fusion of the spaces is repeated as the fusion of bodies; as the fear of being killed, the excitement of killing and of physical exhaustion. The play with timing and visibility that was enacted in the first third of the scene on the spatial level is repeated on the level of bodies. The density of background noise is reduced step by step and becomes individual, irregular gunshots (>EMU 3).    MG

Expressive movement units

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Materials about the scene

Position of the scene in the film