The Deer Hunter

Just watched The Deer Hunter for the umpteenth time - what a film?! Made nearly thirty years ago and still as watchable as it ever was. The madness of war and it's aftermath, predominantly on the lives of the main characters (the brilliant De Niro and Walken)is captured so vividly that parts of it are difficult to watch. It struck me watching it this time, that the world (or America) hasn't learned anything from the shambles that was Vietnam and continues to send it's young men stumbling through unjust, brutal 'wars' which become more and more meaningless the longer they go on. I wondered how many films will be made by my generation depicting the Iraq war and it's atrocities? Will our children watch the horror & torment of yet another unnecessary war, one which seems to be lurching blindly onwards with no meaingful conclusion in sight? Will they shake their heads disbelievingly at the mistakes made by governments and wonder how such horrors could happen? Or will this planet and it's people continue to torture and kill each other so senselessly that Iraq will become just another distant memory, just another war film season watched by a different generation in a different time?