Mickey Mouse

Rating: 10/10 (27 January 2002)

This is without a doubt my favourite war movie of all time. The direction, acting, music and settings are superb, and Kubrick's vision of war is both ground breaking and shocking. The first half, set in the boot camp, shows the soldiers preparing for war. Their training is brutal and psychologically disturbing, proving too much for one of the recruits. The ordeals at the training camp, however, are nothing compared to the situations the soldiers have to face once fighting in Vietnam. Abigail Mead's brilliant and boldly different score adds to the eerie atmosphere and the tension felt in the final scenes.
Also, a word on the Mickey Mouse song at the end - the song ordinarily would trivialize the scene of the soldiers marching, but having seen what we've just seen, the brutal fight scenes etc, it does no such thing, instead seeming out of context. I think Kubrick was trying to point out that while the Vietnam war was trivialized for its failure (and to some extent lack of justification), people forget about the horrific things the soldiers went through. Having seen what the average soldier went through, the war doesnt seem trivial at all any more - the Mickey Mouse song doesnt fit. It makes us realise that failure or not, it was a horrific thing to go through and should never be trivialized. ANOTHER possible interpretation is that this is an anti-America device - the soldiers were dehumanized by the American military. They were sent into a war they could never win by the American Government. The only thing they have to keep them going after seeing their friends killed in battle, and undergoing horrific ordeals, is a shallow song about Mickey Mouse - this is the only positive thing America has given them. And in the context of a war film, it seems a very shallow offering indeed (emphasized by how out of place it seems). In this sense, it could be seen as anti war, anti military and anti America. If this is the case, i think Kubrick had every right to express an anti America view based on this war - remember, if you take away the films expressing negative views, you are left with PROPAGANDA (and we all know theres plenty of that flooding out of Hollywood). This view makes an interesting change. There are 100s of possible interpretations (a reference to how sheltered the soldiers lives were before the war, etc) but i thought those might interest some of the more open minded of you.