Saturday, March 17, 2012

Full Metal Jacket

Stanley Kubrick, 1987, 116m

True to the genre with which his movies can be identified, this film is a mixture of parody, comedy and satire. The humor is always black, and one is left with a suspicion that a part of him is relishing what he sermonizes against. The topic is the Vietnam war, and the target of his satire is not just the absurdity of war, but also America, American culture and American stereotypes. It comes nowhere near his Paths of Glory, which was set in WW1. The first half of the film is about the training of soldiers, which has an electrifying climax, and is almost a film in its own right. The second half is set in the battlefield, and seems loose, incoherent and inconclusive.

2 comments:

Seongyong Cho said...

The first half is so terrific that it makes the second half quite disappointing. As some critic said, it's the most schizophrenic work from Stanley Kubrick.

S M Rana said...

I'm looking to see Barry Lyndon soon, which I can foretaste as a good one.