"M*A*S*H" can be regarded as a masterpiece of black humor. The always rebellious director Robert Altman boldly and bitterly satirized the ongoing Vietnam War with the theme of the Korean battlefield. As an anti-war film, there is no scene of a war scene in the film, which is quite bold and rare. The humorous plot and the language of laughter and curse are also very popular among the audience.
"M*A*S*H" is a completely down-to-earth movie. Because it is firmly attached to its own era, the film has not been affected by experimental shooting methods. However, this does not mean that the film is an authentic hippie film, because while it opposes authority, it also knows how to laugh at itself and is not so narcissistic about its lifestyle.
Robert Altman gave the actors a lot of performance space, and in many cases allowed them to play freely. So under the very particular camera movement, scheduling and beautiful lighting design, the whole atmosphere is handled like a documentary, especially their costumes and props are controlled very carefully. The film created the form of a black humor war film. For the first time, a director made war lose its previous heroism on the screen, and became synonymous with horror and spiritual emptiness. In front of bombs, guns, and blood, the audience will laugh, and at the same time, there will be an inexplicable hopelessness that accompanies the audience. Those sex and cruelty are mixed together, seeing the nature of human beings, seeing the complexity and fragility of life.
The film uses shocking realism and black humor to explore topics of multiple elements such as morality, sex, and war. It is hard to imagine that this extremely bold film, which mixes black comedy elements and political satire, is a work in the 1970s. This kind of universal reflection has allowed the film to gain continuous recognition. It is worth mentioning that before the release of the film, director Robert Altman tried to blur the background of the times in which the film took place and let the audience automatically hook up with the Vietnam War that is happening in reality.
