Robert Altman
M*A*S*H

Ah, for me there's no doubt, he says, raising his voice perhaps a bit too much. "Full Metal Jacket," damn it! Three exclamation points and here comes a string of quotes from the film recited from memory; we look for the switch to turn him off, but he continues unperturbed, and so we have no choice but to throw our beer cans at him, some half-full, in the face. He sits back down with a couple of lumps on his head, and so the conversation can resume. Yes, great movie that one, but "Platoon" is even better! The debate continues with all the usual titles: "Apocalypse Now" and the Ride of the Valkyries, "La Grande Guerra" and that final scene that's hats off, the Russian roulette of "The Deer Hunter", the philosophy of "The Thin Red Line", the guts and the sound of machine guns on the beach of "Saving Private Ryan", the power of propaganda in "Flags Of Our Fathers", the Japanese heroism of "Tora! Tora! Tora!", the atrocity of national socialism in "Schindler's List", the scathing animated film about the conflict in Lebanon of "Waltz with Bashir".

"Rambo."

An army of eyes incinerates this last voice: Ramboooooo???? He even tries to convince others, fumbling through a forest of insults and laughter. When calm returns, someone asks me, "What's your favorite?" By now half tipsy and the other half completely drunk, I point a finger, the index, at my chest and slur something like, "Mine?"

M.A.S.H. Yes, I know it can't be defined as a conventional war movie. Just think that what I can consider the central scene involves an olive doing a somersault from the thumb and index finger of a splendid Elliot Gould to then land at the bottom of a Martini, which, under the circumstances, isn't even a complete mess. I rewatched it a few days ago and it's a work that objectively has seen its years, like the pounds of a former athlete caught on television a couple of decades after retirement, but it still retains that underlying bastardness, that fierce satire that made it famous and that made me appreciate it almost to the point of veneration. It smells of alcohol, marijuana, sex, fucking rock 'n' roll, libertine hippie culture, and to hell with the bigots, to hell with militaristic rules and anyone trying to impose them. The end and the beginning of the '60s/'70s in a military medical camp to clash two opposite ways of viewing and interpreting the way of living. The story is particularly complex: 3 son-of-a-bitch doctors as cynical as few, sawing bones, saving lives, and trying to live the good life, perhaps in an attempt to forget what they are forced to see every day. The End.

It is a powerful, courageous film of enormous scale (shot during the Vietnam conflict) whose message is partly overshadowed by the rapid sequence of hilarious gags that compose it. One thinks back to this work and recalls the irreverent and almost blasphemous delirium that characterizes it, but Altman succeeds in the task of ridiculing militaristic narrow-mindedness without limits and simultaneously makes us taste the sweetish flavor of blood. It is indeed an inspired and intelligent satire performed by a cast with the consistency of the north wall of the Matterhorn (Sutherland, Duvall, Gould, and Kellermann) in which the good guys, the son-of-a-bitches, will eventually, in some unconventional way, have the upper hand over the bad guys, the boring conformists.

"M.A.S.H." is a schizophrenic, daring, contradictory, and in some ways unique work. This is demonstrated by the fact that although it is set in Korea, it can easily be defined as the first stars and stripes war film (1970) about the Vietnam conflict.

Note: The film gave rise to an excellent TV series, won a few golden statuettes that no one cares about, and became a cult film. All ridiculous nonsense compared to the fact that from this feature film, our esteemed user Carlo Cimmino found inspiration for his super cool avatar.

How can one fault him and not recommend it to you?