"The duality of man. The Jungian thing, sir"

Rating: 9/10 (4 August 2014)

I'll start by saying I was never exactly fond of war movies, and so my judgment would be prejudiced, but seeing that this is not only a "war movie", I guess I'll go on. By 1987, we had already seen great anti-war films, such as Platoon and Apocalypse Now, and Full Metal Jacket may be put in the same category most of the time, but that only shows how Kubrick was once again misunderstood. Not that there's anything wrong about making a statement through a film, especially when the subject is war, but I think what this movie shows us is how things can't be really that black on white all the time.
Matthew Modine's character, Private Joker, represents perfectly what the movie has to say, in my opinion, which is to show how people are often confronted with so many different impulses and conflicts that go a long way beyond whichever moral principles a society can convey. It's the duality of man, "that Junguian concept", expressed by Joker to explain the bitter irony in his combination of a peace symbol button and the "Born to Kill" engraved on his helmet. It'd be very much simpler to just state that war is wrong for this and that reasons, that we all know, but to show the other side of it renders a much richer analysis.
Joker might have thought that the Drill Instructor was an asshole and pitied Private Pyle, but it's clear that he also took pleasure in being one of the best of the squad and not being in Leonard's shoes. We are led to believe he is a "good" character, as opposed to figures like the drill instructor, but in the end, he is the one who ends up shooting the Vietnamese girl and then returns home with his mind clear, thinking of nothing but a well-awaited homecoming lay. Private Pyle and the girl shooter are nothing but war casualties now. To me, that's the genius thing about Full Metal Jacket, it gives you the feeling of being a politically correct war movie, but I think it hits a much more subconscious nerve when it refuses to state anything but things as they really are.