michael murray

On Saturday, while flicking about the TV, I came across the movie The Thin Red Line. When this happens, I’m usually compelled to stop everything and watch it until the end.

It’s an utterly mesmerizing film, and I’m pretty sure it’s my favourite movie of all time.

Made in 1998 by Terrence Malick, the movie charts the fortunes of a US army platoon as they attempt to wrest control of Guadalcanal from the Japanese, but really it’s a three- hour poem.

Ten years ago when I was in hospital getting a stem cell transplant for Hodgkin’s Disease, I used to repeatedly watch scenes from The Thin Red Line on my laptop. Inconceivably small and defeated, I was little more than a pale, gray shadow in a hospital gown, and teetering so precariously between life and death, most people thought it strange that I should choose to watch an epic war film.

But I found the movie majestic, holy, even.

The world that Malick depicted was cruel and indifferent-- a place where pitiless acts of savagery, unbidden and unexplained, could erupt at any time. But still, nature remained beautiful and eternal. The world itself was a cathedral and paradise was implicit. In The Thin Red Line I felt like I could feel and see the animating light that sparks each person, and from my hospital bed, that was something that I cherished, something that filled me with gratitude, hope and awe.