Directed by: Sam Peckinpah
Starring: James Coburn, Maximilian Schell, and David Warner
Reviewer: Brett Gallman
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Reviewer's Rating: **** (Four Stars)
Sam Peckinpah presents an uncompromised vision of war, complete with the trademark ultra violence that marked his two more famous efforts, The Wild Bunch and Straw Dogs. The film details a noble German soldier’s (James Coburn) World War II struggles in a platoon beleaguered by a corrupt, fame-seeking officer (Maximilian Schell) whose ultimate goal is the titular medal; its war scenes are indulgent, bludgeoning spectacles marked by slow-motion and grim realism, but the film is most uncompromising in its cynicism. Though it could have reduced to a simple tale of a good man who is charged to commit evil deeds (in the name of the ultimate evil), Cross of Iron is more nuanced than that. Much of the film is dominated by the overall question of “why?,” another seemingly simple query without a simple answer.
Coburn’s character is certainly cynical and jaded himself, a man who fights not for God or country, but only for himself and his outfit. It’s arguable that the film’s most poignant and horrifying moments come away from the battlefield. While on a (short) leave, he witnesses the psychological scars wrought by battle; Peckinpah’s montage here is a frightening, dizzying mix of disturbing images--men (and children) gunned down like animals, blazing battlefields, and the like. That Coburn’s character willingly chooses to embrace this chaos speaks to the type of man he is--resolved, virtuous, and not without a sense of humor. Crying is of course not an option, so he laughs.
His last laugh is truly haunting; as his conflict with his crooked superior comes to a head, he has seemingly been swallowed by the madness that surrounds him. The war is omnipresent in the film--there’s rarely a scene that isn’t punctuated by the sounds of gunfire or dropping bombs; it’s a truly immersive tale that extols what many other war films have told us: “war is hell.” But in this case, it’s a special kind of absurd, interminable hell.
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