A pearl washed ashore by the tide of war

Rating: 10/10 (7 January 2012)

There are lots of so-called anti-war films out there, which focus on showing the inhumanity of war by pointing the camera at soldiers who are shot, blown up, mutilated, that sort of thing. Often these movies lack the necessary reflection related to the shown violence, and assume that this already takes care of itself, and this is a really sad story. The result may lead the phenomenon that some people enjoy such movies because of what they see, not what the film is meant to be about. And thus it might be safer to call such movies "war films" rather than "anti-war". Well, "Paths of Glory" is different. It focuses on the individuals, the executors in the command chain, on those, who are forced to make decisions about life and death, those, who have to survive or make achievements against all odds, who therefore use others to save face.
Kubrick's film is short, but very intense and poignant and goes far beyond the regular motion picture which just happens to be about war. It forces the main dilemmas of a stone-cold war machinery to the surface, where everyone has to play their role and humanity has no place in it, where absurdity is method. "Path of Glory" is a benchmark as far as anti-war movies are concerned, and this also has to be said about one of the most touching final scenes ever. In it Kubrick immortalized his later wife, whose performance gets under one's skin and suggests to us that there are also humans fighting on the other side, caught in the very same inhuman war machinery. There are films that last more than three hours and fail to make a point about war - Kubrick only needs his German wife and three minutes to make this point.