thank you paul gross

It is odd that they accepted his orders. It could have reflected their intense desperation to finish what they had started and make it out. People often become irrational when they're afraid, or they'll do anything for survival. Perhaps Paul's character, for them, symbolized some kind of escape.

I can't think of any justification for the little brother's actions except that he was being moronic as usual. Also, perhaps some kind of shock or mental state that caused him to abandon all fear? It seems he wasn't thinking, just acting on an impulse, or a grand delusion of a one-man conquer. I thought maybe it was just a suicide thing at first. Who knows. :/

I haven't seen Shake Hands with the Devil, but now I'm definitely interested.

What it comes down to is that war is nothing to be proud of, and killing someone, whether it's for a 'winning' cause or not, is going to affect the killer for the rest of their life. It all is horrifying and shouldn't be glorified. :(

And speaking of glory, I know this film isn't exactly pure rawness, but I think it has a lot more good qualities than bad ones. :)

What smells is your take on history. British soldiers won some battles in the War of 1812 before making peace a few days before they got waxed in New Orleans and going home, thereby accepting American independence once and for all. Don't belittle Canada's contribution to the Allied victories in the World Wars by dusting off that tired old anti-American nonsense many Canucks seem to spout off whenever they get a chance. Do I like recycled Reaganites or a lot of the other absurdity that goes on these days in my homeland? No. Does the English and French speaking world owe a debt of gratitude to the U.S. for turning the tide of WWI and stopping fascism and perverted "communist" tyranny from overtaking the world in the 20th century? Yes. Ever hear of the Marshall Plan? Western Europe's infrastructure is currently more modern than that of the U.S. because the U.S. paid to rebuild much of the continent after liberating it from Nazi psychopaths and keeping Stalin behind his wall. No offense to the reasonable Canucks out there, but some of you (I work with many) remind me of the Trustafarian son of Daddy Warbucks who enjoys his privileged existence while berating that which makes it possible. Our many flaws notwithstanding, I still think the world is better off not speaking Russian, Japanese, or German, savvy?

As for the Third World, I don't know if conquest/domination by any of the other world powers who made their play in the last century or so would have been any better for them or not. I rather doubt it. In an ideal world, there would be no exploitation whatsoever to be found anywhere. Sadly, that world has yet to materialize. Though certain Eastern sages and even isolated societies have been attaining enlightenment for quite some time now, many of them were massacred and/or enslaved by Mongols and Muslims long before Yankee Imperialism was even a distant dream. If the U.S. ceased to exist, would Russia and China suddenly become warm and fuzzy?

Anyway, regarding this film, Passchendaele should not have been the title. "I'll Be Loving You Forever" or "I'll Carry Your Obnoxious Girl of a Brother's Cross Until The End of Time" would have been more apropos... It's a shame, really. I wanted to like this film and what scant war footage actually made it to the screen is quite good, heavy-handed allegorical absurdity notwithstanding...

Actually many of the men already knew who he was. If you remeber the native man in the unit was he one he saved in the first scene of the film.

I know, I was just standing behind my opinion, as respectfully as possible. <3