Stanley Kubrick
Full Metal Jacket

If you're expecting to watch this film and by the end know how right and proper the Vietnam War was and how many national heroes it produced, you might as well take the DVD out of the player and let it experience the thrill of flying before even watching it. Because Full Metal Jacket is a film of denunciation. And above all, it is Kubrick. The American director has accustomed us in his films, whether we liked them or not, to unpredictable plot twists and scenes that leave us shocked.

This is precisely his tried and tested technique: to communicate a sad truth or talk about some drama through strong, raw but unfortunately realistic scenes. When you set out to watch one of his works, you already know it won't go as expected and you will be stunned. He amazed us with A Clockwork Orange and did it again with Full Metal Jacket, which for me is the epitome of a film of denunciation. Because here the absurdity of war is targeted, particularly the one in Vietnam (but it could have been any other conflict), and in a broader sense, the human mind, which when there's a goal to reach or one's life to save, cannot be entirely rational.

The film can be divided into two distinct and separate parts: in the first, the grueling and delirious training received by 17 aspiring Marines in a camp at Parris Island in North Carolina is described "in the Kubrickian manner." Among them are the two main protagonists, namely soldiers Joker and Pyle. The recruits' instructor is Sergeant Major Hartman, a guy who if there were an Insult Olympics, would have won golds and set world records hands down. The figure of the sergeant is very interesting: paranoid, overly authoritarian, and as mentioned so vulgar in language as to be comical.

The sergeant's only goal is to make them soulless war machines, aimed only at killing and without scruples. He succeeds with insults and more. Soldier Joker (so named by the sergeant because he had mocked him during a speech) starts to toe the line, despite some initial skirmishes and the courage he shows towards the superior, who eventually comes to appreciate him. A different fate awaits Pyle, a guy who really seems to have nothing to do with war and the evils derived from it. His naiveté and "clumsiness" don't go at all with the instructor, who decides to cure them with public humiliations and punishments to make him a real Marine. In the end, Pyle succeeds, becoming an excellent shooter, but at the expense of his mental stability. Indeed, during the night of a graduation day, in a moment of alienation from his conscience and human pity (exactly what Hartman wanted!!!), he arms himself with a rifle loaded with Full Metal Jacket bullets and shoots the sergeant, under Joker’s terrified eyes. At this point, it’s as if another film begins, as from the previous part the only constant is Joker's presence, along with his fellow student Cowboy. This second part is set in Vietnam, and here things are different: this time it's serious. The soldier is part of Stars and Stripes, the official news produced by those at the front. At the newspaper office, he spends most of his time together with comrade Rafterman, writing articles and decidedly staying out of the real conflict. Joker soon gets tired of the overly flat situation and asks to go into the "real shit," just the place where clashes between the Vietcong and the Americans are increasingly on the brink of disaster. Permission granted, he heads to the hot zone, where he also meets his ex-classmate and friend Cowboy. Subsequently, various war scenes are shown, and the peculiarity is that they are often urban clashes, whereas the Vietnam War was predominantly fought in the forest.

Here Kubrick once again seizes the opportunity to show the irrationality of man when he has a goal to reach, like when a Marine shoots wildly from a helicopter at anyone and states that it's easier for him to kill women and children because they run slower. In the last mission of the film, Cowboy's platoon must deal with a deadly hidden sniper who decimates his team. The Marines feel helpless as they are hit by something they can't see. In the end, the few remaining alive after a tragic slaughter manage to find the sniper inside a building, who turns out to be nothing more than a woman, a prostitute with whom the soldiers had been. It will be Joker who delivers the coup de grâce to her, in a moment of mercy to avoid further suffering. The film closes with the soldiers marching singing the Mickey Mouse song, once again referring to that dark side of human psychology that sometimes activates.

Joker is probably the epitome of this, or perhaps the professor of this theory, since he sports a peace symbol on his uniform and yet has "born to kill" written on his helmet. After the Mickey Mouse march, the credits roll, accompanied by Paint It Black by the Rolling Stones, certainly fitting. As for the soundtrack, I find it very valid.

In addition to the aforementioned rock classic Paint It Black, This Boots Are Made for Walkin' by Nancy Sinatra and Surfin' Bird by the Ramones are present, the latter ironically accompanying a moment of war. In conclusion, sometimes I think the Vietnam War was a commercial gimmick by the United States to then have the opportunity to create a lot of cinematic, literary, or musical material. Among all these creations, some are noteworthy.

Full Metal Jacket is definitely one of them.