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Title: Better than Hell(er)
Review: If Jim Jarmusch ever decides to do a war film, this is what he should base it on. This is a wonderfully odd, comic and moving account of war as pure absurdity. The writing is tons better than Heller in Catch-22, the most obvious comparison. Set in Belgium, a group of American soldiers are given the assignment of holding a castle against the on-coming German front. Their leader is a one-eyed American Indian who is boffing the niece/daughter/wife of the castle's duke. The rest of the soldiers make-up a classic American cultural cross-section: another Indian, a black, a cowboy, a baker, and an art historian. The story is told in chapters from the POVs of the various characters, like Faulkner's As I Lay Dying. Lot's of hilarious dialogue. Thank god Dalkey Archive re-issued this work in their American Literature Series.
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