"Mein Fuhrer! I can walk"!

Rating: 10/10 (10 December 2016)

Considered to be one of the best dark comedies and political satires ever, Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove is one of the most amusing and brilliant films I have ever seen. The plot is rather simple.. an ill-minded and psychotic United States Air Force general launches a first strike "preemptive" nuclear attack against the Soviet Union exceeding his authority. The United States president then tries to stop the attack from the war room, communicating with the Soviets and their president to try everything possible to prevent a nuclear war that would destroy the world.
One could say a lot about what makes this cold war classic among the best. The directing was ingenious with its various camera styles (Documentary, close ups, long shots - different styles for different locations)... cutting back and forth and keeping it consistent with the story... the varying pace (going faster and faster as the film gets nearer to its crazy, hilarious, and symbolic ending).
The screenplay clever, innovative, and witty.. The acting superb.. Sellers, Scott, and Hayden had remarkable performances (especially for Sellers with his three distinct roles).. memorable phrases and jokes: "Gentlemen you can't fight in here! This is the war room". The score lovely and fit.
Yet, the best thing about this movie is in its ideas, allegories, and metaphors. The film came in the mid 60s and that in itself is astonishing with what it held of its time's fears and the theories that all turned out to be true (as many critics and newspapers remarked).
The film's major theory was connecting war with sexual desire. This was shown through various images (mating airplanes, spewing coke machines, "impotent" bombs, playboy magazine..), spelled out through words and phrases ("loss of essence", "Bodily fluids"..), hidden behind symbolic names (Jack Ripper: a killer especially of prostitutes, Merkin Muffley: female pubic area, Desadeski: perverted sexual love in the 18th century, and the same in Strangelove, Mandrake, Kissof..), and even presented in the only female character (Miss Scott) with her bathing suit or presence on the cover of a playboy magazine.
Another important theme is how technology dominated human life. The film shows numerously how things are getting completely out of control and away from moralities. Also Capitalism gets its share of criticism through the memorable scene of Mandrake in the phone booth.. "Shoot with a gun.. that's private property". Moreover, the statement that has been used by many throughout history to justify massacres; "Mr. President, I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed, but I do say no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops, uh, depending on the breaks", was brilliantly implemented in the plot.
By focusing on the relation between war and sex, the film in return shows how the human conduct is leading to a lack of love. The only woman (that is a symbol of love and affection) is presented by one character and by sexual means.. also the theory of Dr. Strangelove at the end adds to it. This leads us to talk about arguably one of the weirdest characters in the history of cinema. His Nazi approach only points out that Nazism may occur in any of our acts, whether on the governmental, corporal, personal or any other level (and it is significantly present in the act of war); "Mein Fuhrer! I can walk".
The anti-war (which is its overall theme) film succeeded in depicting the different aspects of the cold war from its politics to the paranoiac atmosphere that controlled the minds of nearly everyone. Throughout this feature Dr. Strangelove also succeeded in bringing philosophical theories that concern the human life. A masterpiece.