The film focuses on Willard, played by Martin Sheen, a soldier sent on an assignment to kill Kurtz, played by Marlon Brando, a U.S. Army Colonel who has deserted and is now believed by the government to be plotting against them. The audience follows  Willard as he experiences the war while navigating the jungles of Vietnam.

Today, it is not uncommon to hear about the latest airstrike that occurred in Palestine or Ukraine. “Apocalypse Now” takes this one step further and shows the audience what one of these airstrikes is like.

One of the first scenes shows the U.S. Army carrying out an airstrike on a Vietnamese village. The film shows the destruction of several homes and the deaths of many innocent people, not censoring the atrocities, and showing the audience how devastating the consequences of airstrikes are.

People living in Palestine face airstrikes similar to the one portrayed here daily. Although this sequence may be unpleasant to watch, it is important to the film’s anti-war message, as the audience understands the devastating effects of war and its carnage through watching an entire village of innocent people destroyed.

Politicians such as President Joe Biden have argued that the war in Palestine has been unnecessarily lengthy and is now leading to a loss of human life. The scene where the soldiers arrive at a U.S. Army base during an ambush demonstrates how dangerous war truly is by showing the audience a violent confrontation from the perspective of the soldiers.

During the ambush, soldiers are fighting for their lives as they swim in the water while explosives go off around them. A large fire has broken out and the sound of gunfire echoes in the background. All this happens in almost complete darkness, adding to the overall tension of the scene.

The scene echoes the long nights Ukrainian troops face during standoffs with enemy soldiers. The soldiers defending the base are not even sure why exactly they are still there, firing rockets into the darkness hoping to stay alive.

When the audience finally meets Kurtz at the end of the film, we learn that he is not a villain but one of the war’s many victims. After witnessing the loss of so many of his fellow soldiers during the war, Kurtz believed that the only way to win was through being as ruthless as possible.

Post-traumatic stress disorder is a mental health condition that many soldiers face upon returning home from war, as the constant exposure to death and destruction often results in serious aftereffects. Kurtz is a character all too familiar to many soldiers, serving as a haunting reminder of how war can completely ruin a person. 

“Apocalypse Now” may not be the easiest film to watch, but it is an important one, especially with the ongoing wars. Although most people can read about these events, actually seeing them allows the audience to visualize what is happening, providing a deeper understanding of how dire the situation truly is.