I'm not sure how "Flanders" came to my attention but I am certainly glad that I had the opportunity to see it and I intend to seek out more of director Dumont's work. The film takes a cold hard look at nature of humanity, love, and war. The work of Bresson and his effective use of non-professional actors came to mind for me.
War is brutal. People are capable of doing very bad things in the name of love and war as this film so well demonstrates. I was disgusted by "Blackhawk Down" when it was released to feed the blood lust in the run up to the war in Iraq. I found Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan" dishonest. The pro war message of that film was much stronger than any anti war theme it presented. If the old and wealthy had to fight wars instead of the young there would be a hell of a lot fewer wars.
Dumont's view of humanity is not very positive nor is his view of war. People are not very caring and are capable of evil. Sending people to kill others is not a glorious thing. I'm tired of being told "war is hell" and that things like the killing of women and children and the torture and killing of POWs is the cost of doing war and has always been done.
The characters in "Flanders" seem appropriately dead to their own existence and that of others. Dumont's visuals add to the sense of a brutal, inhospitable world. His is an effective and affectless view of the world as I experience it as a kind of a horror show. I recently heard a statistic that in addition to the 54,000 soldiers we lost in combat in Vietnam 200,000 veterans have committed suicide. I'm not sure how accurate that is but the stories I am hearing about the physical, psychological, and mental trauma to the troops returning from Iraq makes war seem a luxury humankind cannot afford. I am grateful that for this work by Bruno Dumont. It is not an easy film to watch but it is, I think, an important one.
