Don't miss the beginning at any cost.Or else you would not hear Buffy Sainte-Marie's eponymous anthemic song (Yes this is my country,young and growing free and flowing from sea to sea...).The version of the song as performed here features a string arrangement not present in the original version (which is to be found on BSM's "she used to wanna be a ballerina",vanguard).This song is as moving today as it was 30 years ago,and when the singer implores "can't you see there's another way to love her?" it gains an universal meaning(not only American natives or Vietnamese as it was mooted at the time for the movie)
The movie is famous for the slaughter which ends it.Terribly realistic ,it remains impressive today and may repel some viewers.There's a very strong use of the score during these scenes.But most of the movie deals with the initiatory journey of a young naive soldier,"educated " by a woman who was captured by the Indians and had to live with them for a while.Candice Bergen's performance came aside as a shock at the time because she used to play frail young maids (Robert Wise's "the sand pebbles";Claude Lelouch's "vivre pour vivre" ) before.But there's a problem:her character is not really believable;just compare her with the heroines with a similar fate in Ford's movies :"the searchers" ,1956;"two rode together",1961..They are far from Crista 's outspoken and politically aware character.Actually ,it seems that this woman is a contemporary woman,with Joan Baez's, Buffy Sainte-Marie's or Jane Fonda's mind (in the late sixties)..
For all that,"soldier blue " is worth watching and superbly uses wide screen :the landscapes match Sainte-Marie's song.Primarily an intimate movie,for most of the time there are only two people on the screen.Hence the contrast with the violent finale.
