MovieChat Forums > Rescue Dawn (2007) Discussion > Did anybody understand this movie?

Did anybody understand this movie?


Dieter is obsessed with flying. That's his thing. If he has to go to war to do it, so be it... he'll drop some bombs on some villages.

He gets into the cockpit and, hilariously, within five minutes of dropping in he's crashed.

But he's a resourceful guy. He never quits. It's a good soldier trait, though Dieter doesn't really care too much about that. When he gets captured he's the one that never gives up and never gives in. But he's not some grand patriot. Despite the inhuman cruelty everyone else withers from, Dieter is just... Dieter.

The movie is taking a classic scenario and, through a sort of ironic detachment, turning it completely on its head.

Instead of a guy who dreams of flight and bravely enters combat, we get someone who is simply so obsessed with the thing that drives him that he's willing to do anything (whether it's risking his own hide, or bombing the crap out of someone else's) to live that dream.

Instead of automatically equating his actions with heroism, the film shows us a guy who perseveres only through a sheer accident of personality. There is no template for how one should react in the face of such cruelty. Should you fight back? Should you give up? Should you collaborate? Who's to say what you'll do when your body has reached its limits? How can we measure values like altruism and patriotism when you're literally at your breaking point? Dieter needs to fly, and that is the only thing that matters to him.

As the guy in the prison camp says, after Dieter recalls the story about what made him want to fly in the first place:(paraphrasing) "(The WWII Pilot)came to bomb your house, and that made you realize you wanted his job??" Even as a child, staring the possibility of death in the face, Dieter saw the very thing that could deliver it and said "I want that!"

After the escape we're treated to image after image of the men in nature, which is as deadly as it is indifferent. And man is worse. And so Duane meets his fate.

And when Dieter is finally rescued, naturally, all he wants to do is go back to his ship. After everything he's gone through, he's still just the guy that needs to fly. But he's a hero by default.

Then he offers a completely meaningless final speech; "Fill what is empty. Empty what is full. Scratch where it itches." and we get a generic freeze frame.

The film ends with the text "(Dieter) survived four more plane crashes."

See, the whole thing is absurd. That it's a true story makes it even more so. Is Dieter's determination admirable, heroic, or just heroically boneheaded?

Can anyone really say?

I think it's important to note that Herzog relates to Dieter. That Dieter's need to fly is no less rational than Herzog's need to make cinema. I think it's the recognition that he is no better that allows Herzog to be detached enough to make his points about the emptiness and absurdity of life and people's capacity for stupidity and cruelty without turning the film into some obvious diatribe.

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I see this needs a bump!

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OOOOKAY?

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Very well said. It's one of my favorite things when the absurd nature of a film matches the absurdity of life. It makes it all that much more real and affecting, and Rescue Dawn is a perfect example of that.

"Specificity?"

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Seems you understood the movie just fine.

Marius

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You've summed it up nicely.

A bit of a hidden gem this film.


But I tried though. Goddammit, I sure as hell did that much, now, didn't I?

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I learned Dieter was a not a good pilot as he kept crashing his plane!

It's that man again!!

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