Response to Craven's Question (#4)

Rating: Null/10 (15 January 2010)

It takes either a great deal of naivetÃ© or a disturbing lack of empathy to expect a person to return from war unscathed; though physical damage can be avoided, one cannot entirely prevent the psychological destruction wrought by the sheer barbarity of his or her experiences. Such is the case when one plays Russian Roulette. As shown by Nick's mental instability engendered by the use of this game by the Northern Vietnamese as a torture device, the psychological stress of repeated cycles of expectation and evasion of death makes the macabre game, in my opinion, a precise metaphor for war itself; loss, on some level, is inevitable-and if one plays (or fights) for a long enough period of time, the loss is permanent. In my opinion, the metaphorical correlation between war and Russian Roulette could not have been an unintentional product of the storyline; it was a deliberate move by the director, and one that I feel added an element of depth to an already poignant film.