I avoided this movie for a really long time, but I finally gave in because I feel like I can’t call myself a true Kubrick fan without seeing this one. I avoided it because I was always under the strong impression that this was just a pure war movie, but I could not have been more wrong. It’s actually not about the war at all, though the last 30 minutes did start feeling a little war-ish, the focus was still on the sociology of it all of course— it is a Kubrick film after all and what does he love more than sociology. I really wasn’t expecting the first half of this movie to be a military satire, but I’m not complaining I thought it was brilliant. It thoroughly depicted the stripping of individuality starting from the first scene with the buzz cuts because ones hair is possibly their most defining feature. Then it moved into the dehumanization of the soldiers— some took it better than others (rip Leonard). Then it suddenly took a much darker turn and never really recovered from that. It started to focus on Joker’s journey from being a smug journalist to the killer he promised not to be. I guess I can’t complain because the central theme is the duality of man, the main character says it himself and is wearing the not so subtle peace symbol / “born to kill” combination. Also, am I supposed to like Joker? I guess I empathized with him at some moments but he seemed like a creep most of the time. His most interesting scene was from the picture above, where he contemplates the killing of the woman sniper not long after questioning why any solider would kill a woman or child. The following scene then shows that he has been fully indoctrinated into the marine mindset, happily singing the Mickey Mouse song with a backdrop of a burning village. Overall, this movie was very different from what I expected which is why I enjoyed it so much, but I didn’t quite enjoy it enough to ever see myself watching it again.
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May Featured Movie QuoteBarry B. Benson: Yellow-black, yellow-black, yellow-black, yellow-black... Oh, black and yellow. Yeah, let's shake it up a little.
Yeah, I have letterboxd now
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