I enjoyed the movie up to the very predictable supernatural reveal that I’ll avoid spoiling for those who haven’t seen it yet. Stuff like that ruins a picture for me, but the rest of the movie is well done and worth watching.
I think the main problem is that the supernatural elements are introduced too quietly and then it's shocking. But since the film is shot from the characters' perspective, maybe that's part of the point.
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I don't mind spoiling it for everybody. He wakes up at the end and realizes it was all just a dream.
And in the ending credits, right after it says "The End", a question mark appears.
And you're like, whaaaat?"
You're welcome.
I read a review that said it was like “Apololyspe Now” only in a tank and with a worse ending. I think that is a pretty good summation.
That thing drank fuel like no tomorrow.
SPOILER ALERT...SPOILER ALERT...SPOILER ALERT...SPOILER ALERT...SPOILER ALERT...SPOILER ALERT...SPOILER ALERT...SPOILER ALERT...SPOILER ALERT...SPOILER ALERT...SPOILER ALERT..SPOILER ALERT....SPOILER ALERT...SPOILER ALERT...’’’
OK, Fair warning.
It wasn’t a “supernatural” ending.
The entire mission was allegorical, including the opening preamble on the bridge. Did anyone think that the mysterious, unmoving deer on the bridge was something you’d find in the midst of an urban firefight?
I’d suggest that the ending is completely of a piece with the slew of off-kilter scenes leading up to it:
The mirrored massacres in the burning church and the burning factory.
The dying tankmen hinting that the mission was somehow a personal one for his lieutenant.
The tank operating underwater. (Yes, there were some designed for the expected invasion of Britain, but the odds of one appearing on the Eastern Front were slim to nil.)
The proliferation of decayed (some too quickly) corpses throughout.
The dead parachutist hanging from a tree in the middle of a forest.
The bunker in the middle of nowhere, unguarded by a single picket yet containing a massive subterranean world complete with its very own labyrinth (as if the name of the mission anticipated such a structure.)
The lance corporal leading the lieutenant only part of the way to his objective within the bunker, and saying as he does, “Don’t be scared,” and “Have courage,” to an officer(!)
The structure mirrors that used in one of the greatest short stories of all-time, “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” by Ambrose Bierce. It doesn’t have the cinematographic clues that “The Tank” has, or the more overt philosophical trappings, but it shares a delayed, surprising resolution. Its text can be found here:
https://www.owleyes.org/text/occurrence-owl-creek-bridge/read/i#root-75217-6
A Frenchman made a short film of it in 1962, and Rod Serling played it in its entirety as an episode of “The Twilight Zone.” It has zero dialogue and is utterly harrowing. Here’s where you can see it:
By the way, Bierce was a fabulous war writer, a very outspoken atheist, and a practitioner of “trick endings.” Famously, he didn’t like what he called “lazy readers” who had to be spoonfed story lines and easy morality lessons. Based on that, I think he’d have loved “The Tank.”