Movie review: Jacob’s Ladder
Directed by: Adrian Lyne.
Multilayered? You bet.
The film is about one man’s life experiences in Vietnam (yeah that Vietnam, the bad one) and the events immediately before and after it. Ostensibly the film is about the secret use and testing of chemicals on US soldiers during the war. I think they even had the cajones to show a blurb after the film telling how the Pentagon (yeah that Pentagon, the bad one) denied ever having tested anything on it’s own soldiers.
Well anyway, the film progresses and it becomes evident that it’s in fact about more than just chemicals and soldiers. Actually that chemicals and soldiers have nothing to do with it. If analyzed in any shape for any amount of time it becomes obvious that the tale is about a man’s perception and relation to the outside world. Where the individual stops and the world begins. The movie uses demons to signify the ‘other’ (obviously cloaked quite often in shadow and darkness) while using sunlight, white and loved ones show the familiar or the us of the them-and-us dichotomy.
Once I thought about it I realized I greatly enjoyed the film. A superficial observation of the film I think would lead to dissatisfaction with it as being simple and gratuitous (as it was in parts). But it does come together in a cohesive whole to deliver a strong and relevant message.