How are you domesticated
——"Full Metal Shell"
The close-up shot of "Kubrick's Gaze" has a kind of horror and treacherousness that is penetrated by the cold current. It is like the cold eyes of God that can peek out your inner fear, triggering uneasy and even hysterical emotions. In Kubrick's films, it seems that all the beautiful and extravagant hopes of mankind have disappeared, replaced by the fear of the times and the distortion of human nature, as well as the philosophical speculation behind the nature and truth of the world.
"Full Metal Shell" also contains Kubrick's worries and fears about people as a group.
The opening song of the Vietnam War, with a slow tone, closely observes the foreplay of several soldiers' military life. The slightly awkward expression and the hair that was pushed off created a sense of joy, and the younger generation was pushed to the training camp with passion and passion. High-intensity physical training and mechanized psychological tests are the process of a person's evolution from a patriotic soldier to a "killing machine."
The instructor’s fierce abuse full of F vocabulary can definitely be used as a textbook performance for swearing, and the roaring dialogue with the soldiers highlights this mechanized training: using voice instead of thinking. Uniform movements, compact and symmetrical composition, brainwashing military songs, unscrupulous and aggressive insults created this suffocating atmosphere from the very beginning. Although Fool Bill's antics alleviated the feeling of depression to a certain extent, Kubrick would not let him continue to do it. The collective isolation and beatings caused by the "bagels" made the fool Bill completely abandon the dependence on human emotions, and the execution of orders became the only mission of the soldiers.
Bill's original hippie image was completely reversed after being domesticated, and he became a cold and powerful "good soldier" with no personality, no emotions, and no desires. He has lost all power to choose, and has completely evolved into a military product-a killing machine. The finished machine seems to have lost control of itself, and it is difficult to suppress the desire for slaughter in the heart. Bill's gun wiping and action demonstration in the toilet are more like a ritual sacrifice. It is no longer important who kills, and only death can end everything.
In this regard, the first half of the film is about how human nature is decimated step by step in the risk of being domesticated. In the second half, a group of war reporters lurking in the rear stepped onto the front line to witness the shocking and absurd real war.
"You say'born to kill' on your hat and the peace medal on your uniform. Is this a cold joke?" — "I just want to raise the duality of humans." Wars continue to occur in mankind, and the slogan of "peace" is used in wars. The existence of this contradiction is a great mockery of war. Soldiers have been domesticated into murderous weapons, and even with the Peace Medal, they cannot hide the bloody nature of humanity. The most ironic thing is that when a group of American soldiers found the sniper hiding in the siege, they suddenly discovered that it was a young Vietnamese girl. The hypocritical existence of war has turned everyone who fought for it into a wailing. This is the sorrow of war. Everyone is just a trivial part of the state apparatus. Life is trampled endlessly, and some people But willing to do so. In the end, the clown pulled the gun and let the girl die with dignity, or it was a manifestation of his still possessing humanity in his heart, but the twisted and domesticated hatred look in the toilet is still impossible for everyone to wipe. Nightmare to go.
At this moment, our lives are still unavoidable: the risks of being distorted by the system, being subdued by the system, and being domesticated by human nature.
——Deng Xianlei (2017, 11, 7)
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