Full Metal Jacket

Directed by Stanley Kubrick

At the Harvard Square Theater

"I am living in a world of shit."

A line like this can be found in most films about Vietnam, films that seek to portray a tragically mistaken policy of a great nation sucked into a faraway land it did not know, to fight a war it could not win.

And while this line comes from the most recent of the Vietnam films, Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket, Kubrick injects the line with an ironic twist which is indicative of the tone of the film. "I am living in a world of shit," one Vietnam recruit says, "But at least I am alive."

Kubrick's film explores this tension between the fear of death and the intensity of life that war evokes. Kubrick's film suggests that while war destoys the humanity in men, it simultaneously is a consummate celebration of the human spirit. Though the war was inhumane, it was somehow very human.

The first half of the movie portrays the transformation of a group of new recruits--the stars of the show--from civilians into fearless killers, guided by a dictatorial drill sergeant.

Under his ruthless direction, the recruits learn to overcome feelings of compassion and to make their rifles their greatest friend. They are trained so that one day they will learn to shoot as well as Lee Harvey Oswald on Texas mass murderer Charles Higgins, both of whom the drill sergeant believes were part of the great brotherhood of Marines.

The saga of the civilians' indoctrination into the ways of war is most dramatically portrayed in the struggle of one lazy, overweight recruit named Pyle. His struggle to shed his dependency on jelly doughtnuts is almost comical, with Kubrick showing Pyle absurdly running at the end of the platoon with his pants at his ankles, sucking his thumb. The transformation of Pyle from chubby mama's boy to bloodthirsty marine is an incredulous feat, serving to demonstrate how a hellish eight-week boot camp stay can turn even the meekest of men into "jolly green giants with rifles."

But this first half of the film is occasionally confused, uncertain whether to portray Pyle as a comic figure or as a troubled man. His sudden psychopathy is barely convincing, because Pyle's getting his act together would have gotten the drill sergeant off his back. Kubrick seems slightly off the mark in portraying the tyrannical nature of the drill sargeant. The sergeant at times seems patriotic to the point of ridicule--tough so he can make his men great in the name of his country--but when he invokes the ghost of Lee Harvey Oswald as a great marine worthy of emulation, Kubrick makes the character appear aimlessly psychopathic.

The genius of Kubrick's work peaks in the second half of the film, as the new Marines are placed into several different platoons in Vietnam, just in time for the surprise Tet Offensive in 1968.

The film lays out Vietnam before the audience in all its scintillating confusion. It does not indulge in the gruesome battles of "Platoon," but it also does not manipulate its audience into feeling terrorized by the silver screen.

Kubrick keeps the audience distanced from the action, inflicting on them the confusion that the soldiers themselves sense as he weaves them in and out of combat situation. But the confusion of the physical environment has entered the soldiers' souls, reflected best by one young recruit nicknamed Joker, who wears a peace symbol on his jacket while letters on his helmet boldly declare "Born to Kill."

When a colonel demands what this means, Joker replies in words that are deadly serious, yet couched in Joker's immortal humor. "I think I'm trying to say something about the duality of man--you know that Jungian thing," he jibes at the superior officer who stares blankly at him.

And so each character, and finally the audience, must cope with not only a desire for peace, but a lust for killing. What matters to Kubrick is the celebration of life, the soldiers' marvelling at their ability to kill or be killed.

The action revels in the excitement of battle, sex, murder and hatred, while acknowledging the absurdity of the whole thing. "We're not fighting for freedom," the rugged warrior declares. "If there's one word that I had to say to sum up what I'm fighting for, it's poon tang," he says.

The interplay of violence and sex brings to the fore the exhiliration of facing death. Like life, and patriotism, Vietnam is a good time while you're in it, but in the end it is all quite absurd.

As the film closes, there is no final quotation placed in the middle of the screen to send you home with a pre-packaged moralistic message. Instead the soldiers walk into the sunset, singing, "Mickey Mouse, Mickey Mouse, Forever May We Hold Our Banner High."