Film Review of Saving Private Ryan

Film Review of Saving Private Ryan A slow, sombre opening to "Saving Private Ryan" leads you to believe that this film will be like any other war film. American idealism, German hatred, a few scattered gunshots, and a trickle of German blood is what any film fan would expect of an American war film, and this film certainly does lead you to believe that in the first opening scenes. Instead, you are surprised to find yourself landed back into 1944, amongst the diffident soldiers who have been thrust against their will into the new and terrifying world of combat. American realism, German anger, intense gunfire, and tureens of anybodies and everybody's blood is what you really get at the frenzied landings of the Dog Green Sector at Omaha Beach. No film has ever portrayed the realism of the Normandy landings to the extent that this film has. This is a sharp contrast to the modern day opening scenes, featuring an ageing war hero and his family visiting the infamous War Cemeteries in France, complete with a patriotic faded American flag flapping in the cold breeze. A slow panning of the camera around the graveyard really shows the full amount of the white crosses there. The old man, who obviously knows which grave to see, is determined to do just that, and becomes overcome with grief when he reaches it. A slow zoom of the camera focuses on the man's eyes, which transform into wrinkle-free eyes. The solemn but calm non-diagetic music is cruelly snatched from the viewer, to be replaced with the uncomfortably loud crash of the sea. A fast zoom out and you find yourself trapped in a large container filled with soldiers, sweat, fear and vomit crashing violently into the rocks. The stormy weather has to be a sign from Spielberg of the trauma that is about to come. As a viewer, you have a slight inkling of what is about to come, but nothing, nothing, can prepare you for the next 25 minutes. A jumble of blood, noise, and death takes place not before you, but around.