Many books and films have depicted the horrors of war, but few have captured the absurdities of the military in peacetime as well as FOR GOD AND COUNTRY. What sounds like a drab look at army life turns out to be affecting and surprisingly entertaining.
At an army barracks located on the Austro-Hungarian border in 1980, the Communist threat from the East is still taken seriously. The 18-year-old Private Berger (Christoph Dostal) breaks up the monotony of his cruel, rigorous daily routine by counting his remaining days in the Austrian army,
daydreaming about sex with voluptuous women, and escaping periodically to a secret bathroom stall where he draws Hieronymus Bosch-like cartoons of his experiences. In the evenings Berger and his soldier friends drive recklessly through the streets, hopping from bar to bar.
Berger becomes increasingly disgusted with military philosophy. In one exercise, he and his comrades are forced to capture and kill chickens for their dinner, but all he feels is despair at the animals' deaths. He seeks comfort and sympathy from his visiting girlfriend, Veronika (Pia Baresch), but
their relationship remains tentative. Berger later becomes deeply upset when one of his friends dies in a car crash following an evening of carousing. Soon after the funeral, an army sergeant discovers Berger's drawings in the bathroom and orders them removed. Finally, discharged from the army,
Berger hopes for a better future.
FOR GOD AND COUNTRY begins and ends with surreal dream sequences. In between, the film depicts the irrelevance of an army without a war to fight and the grim ironies of the military institution. In some ways, FOR GOD AND COUNTRY is on par with, or even superior to, such dark-humored army tale
classics as STALAG 17 (1953), M*A*S*H (1970), CATCH-22 (1970), BASIC TRAINING (1971), and FULL METAL JACKET (1987). Moreover, the film is highly cognizant of its forebears: in one scene, the soldiers watch APOCALYPSE NOW in a theatre; in the next scene, the "Ride of the Valkyries" theme music from
the Coppola film overlaps with a montage of the soldiers' own grueling training session.
Director Wolfang Murnberger displays command over his medium. The stylish, erotic dream sequences provide a counterpoint to Berger's stark daily reality. The fast cutting in the club-hopping montage creates a humorous shorthand for the empty thrill-seeking the soldiers pursue in lieu of true
freedom. In another montage, which depicts different types of soldiers in the army (knighted soldiers, toy soldiers, et al.) Berger's point of view expands into an impressionistic essay. And, through moments of symbolism and quietly effective narration, FOR GOD AND COUNTRY also questions or
confronts such issues as patriotism, patriarchy, gender roles, "Christian" attitudes, and even Austria's stifled Nazi past. (Violence, nudity, sexual situations, adult situations, substance abuse, profanity.) leave a comment
