Time For Cherries
VALERIE ŠTANGLOVÁ, UČO: 462861
WHAT IS THE FILM'S THEME? (WHAT IS THE FILM ABOUT?)
In my opinion, the film is not about one thing but many things. My first thought
after reading this question was of course that it is about war. About this strange war
that certainly feels quite one-sided, when we think about the booby traps and how
we only see one army and no enemies. But maybe this film is just as much about
war as Catch-22 is a film about war, it's more of a film about a man dealing with it,
and what he sees during it, how he deals with on one side the must for it, the need
of a war in the time and place and also about the uselessness of loosing life as an
individual, about the meaningless of life's actions and the reason of life if it can be
cut in a blink of eye. That is what I think the film is about mainly if we take it as a
whole, and not only as a story of Mickey's role in it. It is about the thin line between
life and death, and I think this film proves it many many times.
DO WE HAVE ENOUGH HINTS TO BE SURE THAT MICKEY (GIL FRANK) WILL DIE BY THE
END OF THE FILM? WHAT ARE THEY?
In my opinion, though there are certain hints in this film that Mickey might die at the
end of the film, I don't think there are exactly enough hints. Although he risks his life alot, it
is more of a metaphor to the uselessness of the war and an anger towards the world.
Technically we can take some things in the film as a hint he might die: but there are more
certain at the beggining of the film, like mickey talking with the man at stone works, him
laying down in the grave, or even later as he walks through the mine field. But I was
hoping more for some other tragedy to happen, exactly to his wife, which I think would give
him a new wiev of the world cause he would still have a son to take care of, he would get a
new reason to live and value his life more. But maybe that is too cliché.
WHAT IS THE UNIQUE STYLE OF THIS FILM THAT DEFINES ITS POETIC ATMOSPHERE
AND FEELINGS? COULD YOU CATEGORIZE THE FILM'S GENRE? HOW WOULD YOU
DEFINE THE SENSE OF REALISM IN THIS FILM?
I think the thing that makes this film unique is the constant switching between
seriousness and absurdness - on one side we have a group of men fighting for their own
lives, and some dying....and then we have the same group of men gather around a tv just
to watch porn while they are in service (and in one room with woman) , joke around, make
very foolish things (for instance the firework show) and generaly beeing very laid about
everything they go through. I think this is a very true portrayal of reality in this film, since it
is showing the group of men in their true nature and makes the film feel lots more familiar
than alot of war movies.
The film's genre, I think, despite it not fitting completely is a true war movie, it has a lot of
traits of a war movie and shows this war how it (probably) trully was.