Full Metal Jacket (1987) and the War Machine

 "Do I think America belongs in Vietnam? Ehm.. I dunno, I know I belong in Vietnam."

Horrific. Young men engineered and processed to become unfeeling killing machines within a war that breeds and forms a penchant for bloodlust...

soldiers in faded greens spill red blood with childlike glee, so completely arrested in their development because that is all the job wants of them: to be unthinking and obedient practitioners of atrocities

Kubrick posits Joker as detached observer, a figure that can enter the permeable membrane of war attitudes and recognise the insanity, yet still contributes to its cycles and effects. All the other soldiers are slaves to impulse and perversion, yet Joker seems to wear these attitudes as a mask, a neutral party watching in curiosity and bemusement.

We are jolly green giants, walking the earth with guns.

These people we wasted here today are the finest human beings we will ever know.

After we rotate back to the world, we're gonna miss not having anyone around that's worth shootin'.

Originally posted on Letterboxd on 1st May, 2024