Starts like an Anti-War film, ends like a Humanistic masterpiece ...

Rating: 10/10 (25 July 2011)

"I reject the war and everything in it ... I don't deplore it ... I don't resign myself to it ... I don't weep about it ... I just plain reject it and all its fighting men. I don't want anything to do with them or it. Even if there were nine hundred and ninety-five million of them and I were all alone, they'd still be wrong and I'd be right. Because I'm the one who knows what I want: I don't want to die."
--- Ferdinand Bardamu, admitting his absolute cowardice in the French literary masterpiece "Journey to the End of the Night" by Louis-Ferdinand Celine. ----
There's no possible anticipation of how our so precious ideals, nationalism, patriotism, and whatever abstractions ending with that detestable suffix, will inspire us at the crucial moment, when our chances of staying in one piece for the next minute will be severely compromised. For there is one thing for sure, no person in this world does want to die in the last moment before death, even in the case of suicides. Our conscience, works as a double-edged sword because we –contrarily to the animals- are aware of our mortal condition, and we all fear the unknown, except in the intimate conviction on the after-world's existence. The role displayed by religion in these circumstances is dangerous but crucial. Religion is like the accomplice of a cruel authority that decides to kill you, in the name of love. The general tells you why you should accept to kill, and the priest why you should accept to get killed.
Love your country, love your God, and kill in the name of them, and don't fear being killed. This is the indecent games that politics and religions love to play. In making us believe that we belong to the right side and naturally omitting that the enemy uses the same psychological mechanisms, after all, there is no room for empathy when it comes to wars, all that matters is the sacred and sanctified 'path of glory', a beautiful road paved with the most hellish intentions. These sordid roles are played by two generals in the opening of Stanley Kubrick's movie, one is the master puppeteer, General Commander Broulard and his distinguished subordinate General Mireau, and the puppets submitted to a suicidal mission, have no objection to express, except obeying the orders. This is the war's philosophy, go ahead, run, jump for glory, but don't look back; you own rifles are pointing at you. You belong to the greatest country in the world, and that pride alone is enough to resign yourself and die as a hero.
"Invoking posterity is like making speeches to worms", said again, the great Louis-Ferdinand Celine. Dying like a hero, being remembered, the glory of this, or that, all these words become senseless when you know that you'll be a rotten corpse soon. This is what war is about. War is organic, you feel it, you smell it, breath it, the nose drown in an ocean of dirty mud, and praying your divine power that it would be quick, while watching the guts of your friend splattering in your uniform or a strident gurgle piercing your ears. During the film, two soldiers discuss which death would be less painful, as each one examines the effect of a bayonet, gas or a gunshot in the body. Speak about torment, fear or anguish, we're scared because whatever we're taught in class, in catechism, in history, we're afraid to leave the Earth, because we're afraid to live our body. We don't care for the other, this is OUR country, but this is MY body, and it makes a whole lot difference in the Army when the individual doesn't count, one death is tragic, one thousand is statistics. In one scene, one of the three soldiers condemned for 'cowardice in the face of the enemy', envies the cockroach that'll still be alive on the day he'll be dead, his unfortunate companion stamps on the insect, to give him 'the edge' not realizing that he just 'killed to make a point', his own condition in microcosm.
So, talk about courage, about heroism, these are such great words, but ultimately, while facing death, even the bravest man can collapse and bawl like a little girl. The moment where the supposedly toughest one begs for mercy, broke my heart as one of the most honest and truest depiction of the mental state of a man about to die  although I'm not in a rush to verify how it really feels. And this is humanity, an attachment to life, not a sadistic pleasure to kill the other in the name of your pride. War is the existential nightmare of humanity, and "Paths of Glory" the greatest denunciation of its anti-humanistic nature, after "All Quiet on the Western Front". It's hard to imagine that the film was made by a director who wasn't in his thirties. Stanley Kubrick made one of the most virulent pamphlets against the madness of war that sent millions of people to the massacre, selling the prestige of winning the war, of fighting for the country like the body of a beautiful maiden. A strong reason for Colonel Dax, Kirk Douglas as the man who defended the three accused, to be ashamed for human race.
Never had a movie be so just in its depiction of War, and I guess it needed a positive note to bring some light in the darkness. The unforgettable final scene in the bar, where a young German girl sings a famous song, and after the boos, the whistling, the soldiers hum the song in unison, is the highlight of the film, that proved that after all, we may be called cowards, pacifists, idealists, but when you overlook the futile barriers that poison our relationships, you realize that life is so precious it's worth being called a coward