Fair enough.
Wanting to understand is always a laudable goal.
But I want to contend that war movies and documentaries about war are two different things. The latter are often illuminating, offering as they do some explanation as to why, after all these centuries–indeed, millenia!–we’re still tied to our nature as tribal primates, whereas the former too often get the Hollywood treatment, where human nature gets to be viewed through the narrow crucible of some personal but ultimately meaningless drama.
Really, who cares about Private Ryan when thousands are dying on all sides for the sake of some jingoistic ideologies that are here today and gone tomorrow?
That being said, Gwynne Dyer’s War was almost as good as The Bridge on the River Kwai.
Almost.