Adapting ‘Heart of Darkness’ means finding analogs for Conrad’s Congolese, and bringing in Vietnam’s indigenous people to substitute for them is historically inaccurate and indulges in movie-savage clichés that were grotesque in silent cinema. The misconception of the Montagnard is an unforced error in the movie, while the narration written by Michael Herr remains a noble effort at balancing the film’s phantasmagoria with some authentic grunt perspective. (Glenn Kenny, RogerEbert.com)
Restored from the original film reels, Francis Ford Coppola’s ‘Apocalypse Now: Final Cut’ is a nightmarish, hallucinatory ‘road movie’, set during the Vietnam War, about the surreal river journey of U.S. Army Intelligence Officer Willard, played by Martin Sheen, into the dense jungles of northeastern Cambodia to locate Col. Kurtz (Marlon Brando), said to have created a god-like cult of himself.
When Willard reaches the temple compound in the jungle, we can clearly see the inspiration the set designers took by recreating the towering Bayon faces, elements of Angkor Wat, Banteay Srei temple and the general feel of overgrown ancient Khmer architecture on the original set in the Philippines. Unfortunately the extra talents, costumes and props in no way try to approximate local Khmer or minority culture, and seem to be a hodgepodge of Asian and Asian-Pacific tribes. The river in the movie is supposed to be based on the ‘Srepok’ river in Ratanakiri province.
‘Apocalypse Now’ is one of AFI’s top 100 films and was nominated for eight Academy Awards.
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