// War Literature

I don’t want to sound repetitive but I also want to talk about a little bit about the use of music in this movie. I noticed that there were several scenes where they played waltz music in the background when it just didn’t seem right to play that type of music. One of these scenes was when Shmuel Frenkel began to recall one of his experiences during the war. He and a group of soldiers were walking through a forest(as waltz music plays in the background). They are carrying rifles as they search for the enemy. They get engage in a fire fight and a boy is killed. Another scene is when a character describes how soldiers during WWII only had 48hrs of leave to visit their family. They show a group of WWII soldiers getting off and on a train(as waltz music plays in the background). Both of these scenes are clearly somber scenes while elegant and almost playful music plays in the background. I believe the director does this to juxtapose the idea of being entertaining and fascinating to someone looking in from the outside(us, the viewer) and gruesome and real to those fighting in it. The placement of certain types of music in the movie is peculiar but what about this film is not?