re:mote voices

Title: Buffalo Soldiers
Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Ed Harris, Scott Glenn, Anna Paquin, Elizabeth McGovern, Dean Stockwell
Director: Gregor Jordan

wow. thats weird. i went into buffalo soldiers without connecting the dots. the night before (see below), we went and saw goodbye lenin, a film set in east germany with the back drop/time scale of the berlin wall coming down. i knew that buffalo soldiers was set in germany, but hadn't realised that it was set in west germany with the back drop/time scale of the berlin wall coming down.

though in saying that. the berlin wall has less of an impact on buffalo soldiers, it really is just a backdrop. but still. its a weird situation to be in!

buffalo soldiers follows ray elwood, a supply clerk for the american army, stationed on a base in west germany. the base line of the film is that bored soldiers will find things to do, and elwood is the classic skam artist when it comes to finding things to do. this strikes me as being very much sergeant bilko territory, or at least it would if i had seen anything more than a token clip here or there of seargant bilko. on top of which elwood is dealing with darker areas - in particular drugs and the recontextualising of supplies.

elwood finds the pressure on with the arrival of a new supervisor. a man determined to pull up elwood at every turn. a battle of wills start, with elwood deciding to pull his supervisor's daughter. which is all very well, except that this escalates the friction between them, he actually falls for the girl for real, and he has the biggest skam of his life going on right now.

buffalo soldiers' humour is dark, perhaps even bitter, and is a presence throughout the film. the secondary plot where elwood and friends start to sell weapons in exchange for more raw drugs provides a contrast to the humour. with that comes an escalating sense of violence. strangely this has an aspect of the farcical, as nothing quite goes to plan. overall? this film had us laughing a lot, and while the ending might step into the unlikely/unbelievable, it is worth seeing, especially taking it into consideration as viewing partner for goodbye lenin (even though they are really very different films!!)