Is an anti-war movie possible?

[Alessan]

@robby

there’s a reason that recruit training changed in the U.S. military from how it is depicted in the film. There are a lot more rules now (which is true for the last 40 years or so), and a lot less hazing and cruelty. Not only were there some well-publicized recruit deaths which led to a public outcry, but even the movie Full Metal Jacket itself shows the possible consequences of pushing a recruit literally past the breaking point.

Oh, absolutely! By the time we watched the film - late 1993 or early 1994 - the methods depicted there were almost certainly a thing of the past in the Marine Corps as well.

[The_Other_Waldo_Pepper]

@ASL_v2.0

It only deigns to take just enough of the edge off in the end to not also be an anti-human film

“We finally, really, did it! You MANIACS! You BLEW IT UP! Ah, DAMN you! God damn YOU ALL TO HELL!”

Wait, wrong movie.

[RivkahChaya]

@Pardel-Lux

Does anyone remember the 1983 TV production The Day After? It was shown on TV in the USA, but on cinemas in Europe. I saw it in Berlin and I can tell you the mood when leaving the cinema was somber. People were shocked.
It is so long ago, I couldn’t tell you the details. I think it was not even a good™ movie. But anti-war? Yes, I think it was. It worked that way on us.

I didn’t get to watch it, because I was in a play, and we had rehearsal; my family didn’t have a VCR, and I didn’t happen to see it at anyone’s house who did have one.

But I remember the fuss.

Yes, people were shocked.

I did see a documentary (unusual in that is had no narration at all) which came to theaters around the same time called The Atomic Cafe. It wasn’t as widely viewed as The Day After, but I discussed it with people who did see it, and it was extremely effectively as anti-nuclear propaganda.

Admittedly, anyone who’d go to it was probably already at least vaguely anti-nuke (I was), but The Atomic Cafe radicalized me. I joined a couple of organizations-- one was for teens and supervised by adults (sort of). The other was a student group run by both undergrad and grad students, and did not have faculty advisors. I was a part-time ,

[Czarcasm]

Has anyone else seen All This And World War II?

[Dewey_Finn]

@Reply

I remember Eye in the Sky as being pretty anti-war, with a focus on the dehumanizing aspects of American drone pilots in desert trailers killing people thousands of miles away with what looks like gaming controllers.

That was basically a cinematic presentation of the trolley problem.

[MortSahlFan]

La Grande Illusion

[Slithy_Tove]

The Battle of Algiers

The fighting is brutish and cowardly, the ideals of both sides were compromised by cynicism, and the outcome wasn’t some glorious liberation from tyranny.