Full Metal Jacket 2

Rating: Null/10 (28 March 2008)

De Palma's heroes often fail to rescue women from their ill fated destinies. In his blood soaked worlds, women are objectified and then cast aside, often killed by phallic tools (drills) or manly instruments (shaving blades). The high school rituals in "Carrie", the low budget exploitation films in "Blow Out", the porn flicks in "Body Double" and "Black Dahlia", all portray women as tokens of capitalist exchange. In "Obsession" this exchange revolves around international business, in "Blow Out" and "Snake Eyes" it revolves around national politics, in "Scarface" it revolves around organised crime and in "Dahlia" it revolves around Hollywood.
Critics have used this to label De Palma as a masochist who hates women. It took Pauline Kael, who championed De Palma as a feminist director who targets, not women, but rather, the patriarchal order, to lay the foundation for a slew of feminist writers embracing De Palma's films.
"Casualties" replaces Kubrick's metaphorical rape of a female sniper with the literal rape of a Vietnamese civilian (called Oahn). Both director's treat war as the defiling of the Feminine Other, though Kubrick goes one step further and internalises it ("death of the Feminine equals loss of self" becomes a Kubrickean dismissal of Jung: "there is no self"). In "Casualties of War", the rape is thus not only a single incident, but symbolic of a larger patriarchy threatened by national and racial difference.
Tellingly, the film opens with a train drawing to a halt. Only women and 2 black men leave the carriage. They've been dispatched and so we zoom in on Erickson (played by M. Fox), who sleeps against a window. His head occupies the right of the frame whilst the left of the frame is distant and out of focus. This right-left composition will be repeated throughout the film, firstly when a black trooper (called Brownie) is killed, secondly when Sean Penn recounts Brownie's death and thirdly when Oahn is killed. These deep focus shots work as a moment of contrast, recollection and mourning. In the first, we see Fox in the foreground, asleep and oblivious to his surroundings. In the second, we see Brownie dying in the foreground, while Vietcong hide in the background. In the third, we see the reverse. Oahn is stabbed to death in the background, while Fox fires at Vietcong in the foreground.
De Palma also uses the notion of vertical space to separate each portion of the film. The first act is subterranean, Fox linked to underground tunnels. The second act is above ground, De Palma stressing dry, flat landscapes. In contrast, the third act takes place on a series of hills, whilst the fourth act takes place on a high-rise bridge. The tall bridge and the underground tunnel frame the rape story. We watch as Fox ascends further and further into hell.
De Palma uses the first act of the film to set up genre conventions. Here, Sean Penn is the hero. He rescues Erickson, kills the savage Vietnamese animals and prances about like John Wayne, spewing tips and wisdom of the jungle. The fast talking black guy, the noble sergeant, the new recruit, the dirty Vietnamese...all these genre conventions are quickly set up, only to be reversed twenty minutes later.
Sean Penn, in his first piece of meta-acting, plays his character as a cross between John Wayne and De Niro's Vietnamese psycho from De Palma's "Hi Mom!". After the death of Brownie, he chooses to take his men to the local brothel. They plan to hook up with some whores and vent their anger, but learn that the village is off limits, as the Vietcong troops are busy visiting the whore houses themselves. This drives Penn mad. "Charlie is getting my pussy!" he yells. What follows is the group's attempt to win back and conquer the Feminine Other. They want "her", simply because the enemy has "her". To have "her" is to deny the enemy.
The scenes in which Oahn is dragged from her village and later raped are some of the most powerful moments in De Palma's filmography. When her battered face is revealed, it's hard not to cry. Later, De Palma cross-cuts Oahn's death with a POV shot down the scope of an American rifle. The point is clear: every shot fired, in every war, is a knife in Oahn's chest (in Vietnamese, Oahn means "injustice").
De Palma is a smart guy and he knows that making an anti-war film means making one in which the audience gets no visceral kick out of violence. Like Kubrick or Jancso, his violence has a dry detachment. And like "Come and See", it's often subjective and stretched to operatic lengths. This morbid tone is largely why the film has failed to capture audiences. Man wants the excitement and primal bloodlust of a "Platoon", "Black Hawk Down", or "Saving Private Ryan", most of these films functioning as "war porn", a form of catharsis or gratification (violence always has a sexual element). The existential disappointments of a "Casualties of War" or a "Come and See" are unsettling and no fun at all.
After Oahn's death, we watch as Fox tries to get the "bad apples" jailed. Significantly, this portion of the "dream" begins with Fox "waking up" back in camp. With the release of De Palma's "Redacted", this much derided final act now seems only more powerful, allowing us to empathise with the gang of rapists, to balk at their harsh sentences, even as we despise their actions.
Fox then wakes up a final time, sees Oahn leaving the train and notices that she's left her scarf behind. He rushes after her. We briefly recall Oahn's mother handing her daughter a scarf prior to her being kidnapped. The camera then cranes upwards, taking Fox to one final level. The credits roll.
8.9/10 - Masterpiece. Requires several viewings, if only to properly attune yourself to what De Palma is doing.