MovieChat Forums > The Thin Red Line (1999) Discussion > Can someone explain the Swing Scene

Can someone explain the Swing Scene

posted 8 years ago by justintime-23652
3 replies | jump to latest

It the part she is on the swing and then u see the airfield getting attacked and all i want to know is was it the Americans getting attacked of Japanese?

[–] HenryCW 8 years ago

The airfield was originally a Japanese airfield. Guadalcanal was the first US offensive in the Pacific War as the island with its airfield was of strategic importance. The US landing at Guadalcanal caught the Japanese by surprise and the marines captured the airfield quickly and renamed it Henderson Airfield. That had already happened when the US troops in this film landed as reinforcements, and so you see US planes on the airfield. But then both sides brought in more reinforcements to battle for the island, and the Japanese carried out counterattacks. The airfield was subjected to regular shelling from Japanese warships, etc. and that was why you see explosions and planes burning.

[–] violence_and_electronic_music 8 years ago

In the context of the film, it's supposed to show what he thinks of in the face of death. He thinks of how beautiful he and his wife together, and then having it suddenly ripped away. Pretty heartbreaking.

[–] kenny-164 8 years ago

Aside from showing what the soldier was thinking, I think the juxtaposition of the two intercut scenes raises the existential question of who we are at a given moment, particularly a time of stress and challenge. Elsewhere the voiceover mentions how war as an experience is not ennobling. And yet in the scene in question Private Bell remembers his wife and her beauty and an idyllic time they shared. He is that person, too, or more accurately the experience he had with her and the implied encounter with the divine it represents on a metaphysical level is part of him at the same time he is involved in and a witness to the battle. The theme of Nature's duality is also found in man, meaning the soldiers we encounter.