| RATING: | 80% |
| FORMAT: | Cinema |
War is Hell
Strange yet wonderful Vietnam War movie. Strange because this Vietnam is quite a cloudy place of muted greens where no one seems to sweat. Wonderful, because it successfully uses metaphors to explore the strategic stupidity of fighting an unwinnable war, so far away from home. (Moreover, the other really good Vietnam war-movies - The Deer Hunter and Platoon were also British films. As if the Americans are unable to be unemotional and clear-sighted about a war they so successfully lost.)
Here, the characters wander around a pockmarked and battle-scarred south-east Asia avoiding the jungle and wondering why they are there at all. They conclude their mission is simply one of slaughter for its own sake - with no wider geopolitical goal than to show the capitalist will to fight communism and communists.
As so often with US foreign policy, there is little pretense at actually defending the mother country. Instead, using vague concepts like Freedom, Americanism and Peace, a pseudo-justification is arrived at for what is, in reality, White neo-colonialism. The Viet Minh communists understand this perfectly well; hence, the failure of any such propaganda to subvert their minds from the basic task of winning.
The strong sense of futility that pervades the second half of the movie is in stark contrast to the black humor of the first. The latter of which makes clear this is the kind of comedy at which the director Stanley Kubrick excels.
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