Happy is the man who does battle without hatred

-- The Legend of Goumba--

War and conflict are many things, but at their heart lies a fundamental, radical distinction between us and them. It is the breaching, enforcement and execution of this separation that drives combat. To me, this is the basic problem about telling a war story. In other words, it’s easy to fall in line and follow heroes and villains, to never really ask why those people deserve to die. It’s no surprise to see that very few films are able to really capture the spirit of this separation. 

There’s a general perception that the first half of Full Metal Jacket is where the film shines, while the second half, although technically fantastic, is muddled and unfocused. But that’s not the case at all. It is an uncomfortable film because it is honest about moral ambiguity.

 Whereas the first half is balanced and rigid, the world of war is chaotic and unpredictable and the training does not answer all questions. When the marines are finally face to face with the sniper at the end of the film, Kubrick has taken all of us into the very naked heart of war. For the first time, the act of killing gains a personal moral dimension. Joker kills with his eyes open. He kills with mercy and dignity in a world full of shit. 

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The passing of Roger Ebert underscores how important film criticism is: it starts conversations; it helps us to think and engage with the most ubiquitous art-form of our age. I've been putting off writing about films due to a stubborn affection for procrastination. However, now that I have ventured into it, I do not pretend that it will become a full-fledged commitment. My writing will be driven by my fancy and I advise readers to treat it accordingly. 

In the classic days of noir thrillers, films often presented rigid moral codes that were seldom broken. Forced happy endings were our daily bread. Yet, the most memorable amongst these films are portraits of nightmares, those that pulled us close to the reality, close enough to smell the dark and rich intestines of our society.

If we were lucky, we would end up rooting for broken characters, those who are tortured by a world they could not live with. What in a lazy film would be a simple monster was transformed into a vulnerable and wounded antagonist, human like the rest of us. Just think of Peter Lorre’s pedophilic serial killer in M, Alan Ladd’s tender-hearted thug in This Gun For Hire, and the twisted obsessions of Arturo de Cordova in Buñuel’s This Strange Passion.

Visceral, naked, brutal and above all, surreal and honest—OLDBOY epitomizes the soul of the noir genre. And it does so by getting its hands filthy, with a style that truly deserves the adjetive badass, and an intimacy with violence and depravity that is whole-heartedly unapologetic. 

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