Ain't war hell?

Rating: 9/10 (21 March 2015)

Yes, indeed, war is hell. And a lot of men seem to enjoy it. Like the crazy helicopter gunman in Full metal Jacket that utters this phrase after explaining his techniques of shooting women and children. But also the other characters we meet, like Private Joker, take a keen pleasure in killing. We follow them trough their Marine boot camp, where they learn to connect their sexuality with their killing instincts, through more or less random events in the Vietnam war, where they have an alternating lifestyle between fighting and having sex either with a prostitute or on their own, into the final showdown where - at the peak of the movies irony - a woman turns out to be the most effective killer.
It took me almost to decades and several viewings to vaguely understand what Kubrick is trying to say with this movie. It's of course a bitter and cynical war movie, but ultimately the real message is about the relation of men and women and how this tension so drastically shapes our world.
Compared to Kubricks other war movies - Dr. Strangelove and especially Paths of glory - this one doesn't hold up quite that well. While the inevitable logic and human nature itself drive the plot forward forcefully in these other pieces, this one is more of a philosophical statement about human nature and it is very dark and cynical indeed. I would not count it among Kubricks best, but it nonetheless is a really great movie.