Text/Big Shell
Adapted from Conrad's novel Dark Heart, directed by Coppola, who previously directed The Godfather, Apocalypse Now tells a story related to the "Vietnam War", through the vivid presentation of killing and death, to achieve a deep reflection on war and human nature.
What would his family think if he knew how far away he was from them? He broke with them, and then he broke with himself. I've never seen a person so isolated and torn apart.
This is Colonel Kurz, who was one of the best officers in the U.S. military in the Vietnam War, full of humanitarianism, clever humor, and American officers said of him.
But he is also the protagonist of this film, the subject of the "execution" of The Us Military Captain Willard. Finding him and ending his rule is Willard's mission.
This man, who had been so good, had become strange in his words and deeds since joining the special forces, and had even personally established an independent kingdom in the occupied land, where the indigenous people worshiped him as a god, and Colonel Kurz unscrupulously judged in the jungle in front of life. The military will not allow such a person who has lost "humanitarianism" to take over military power.
This is where the film Apocalypse Now begins, a story about "executions."
The Vietnam War, which took place from 1955 to 1975, cost the United States more than $400 billion, involved 650,000 people, killed 58,202 people, wounded 303616, and lost 2,500 people. Movies about the Vietnam War, the United States did not make less. Full Metal Shell is also a film about the Vietnam War.
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If "Full Metal Shell" shows the coldness of war, then "Apocalypse Now" shows the killing behind the cold to the fullest, like the killing of the game, everywhere.
A detachment of the Ninth Air Cavalry Regiment was responsible for sending Willard to the mouth of the Chao Phraya River, and when Willard and his party found them, they were engaged in a "surprise attack" (indiscriminate bombardment) on a Village in Vietnam. The Air Rider Commander Bill Kilgo had no time to take care of Willard as he hurried to throw playing cards (death cards) at the dead and wounded in order to show victory to the Viet Cong in order to tell the Viet Cong who had killed them.
But as soon as the camera pans, he is quite "humanitarian" shouting to drink water for the wounded Viet Cong who are "desperately struggling" on the battlefield.
Bill Kilgo said he liked to smell napalm, which was unique, and once they blew up a hill for 12 hours in a row, and after the blast, Bill climbed up the hill and didn't find a single Viet Cong corpse, but the smell of gasoline that pervaded the hill smelled of victory.
Bill also likes to play music about 1 mile from his destination, Wagner's Valkyrie, the magnificent symphony, the fighter jets galloping in the air, the villages waiting to be bombed, it is shocking and thrilling. Bill used his "frivolity" as a victor to intimidate the Viet Cong and enjoy himself. Just as he chose to bomb this village and not the other because the seashore here was suitable for surfing, Bill's battle seemed to be just entertainment.
On this "execution" road, Willard and his party also encountered the labor party and met the bunny girl.
The opposite of the Bunny Girls was the fanatical American soldiers, in frivolous language, eagerly pounced on the young girls. See american soldiers hanging on airplanes? On the plane sat bunny girls who had just performed on stage.
In order to have a chance to get along with the bunny girl, they are willing to give up the fuel tank used in the war, and then look for another fuel tank that can be used from the battlefield full of artillery fire. At this time, how to applaud their "heroism"?
On his way to find the colonel, Willard met the French who had taken root in the local area, and the French, who had suffered from the defeat of the war, said: You Americans, after the war against Japan in 1945, your President Roosevelt did not want the French to stay in Indochina, so you Americans inserted themselves into the Viet Minh (following Ho Chi Minh). Now that you've replaced France, so Viet Minh beat you, what can you do? Completely helpless.
When the grandfathers and uncles of the French came to Vietnam, vietnam was deserted, they brought rubber trees from Brazil, hired Vietnamese, and took root here, they fought for this "root", which is why they wanted to stay, which was the glory that made their family united enough.
But what about the Americans? In french parlance, it was a fight for the most nihilistic thing in history. You have come from afar, what are you fighting for?
But as a warrior, Willard still has to work for the "execution" of the colonel, and when they finally find the colonel in a village in Cambodia, the story is pushed to a climax here, and the killing is pushed to the extreme here.
Primitive villages, corpses everywhere like cattle and sheep everywhere, children laughing next to cattle and sheep for reporters to take pictures.
The people living in the caves high up try to dominate all this: American Colonel Kurz, three generations of West Point military school graduates, smart and humorous, 38-year-old Kurz who is still a paratrooper, and Kurz, who is rumored to be rich in "humanitarianism".
Kurtz seems to have been waiting for Willard for a long time, waiting for the man sent by the organization to "execute" him, this man has the right to kill him, but this man also has no right to judge him, no right to judge his right and wrong.
Because, for those who do not know what terror is, it is impossible to describe to them in words what is the necessary terror. As Kurz said, terror and moral terror are friends you have to make, and if you can't, they're the enemies you should be afraid of, your real enemies. Accustomed to atrocities and then tormented by the values surrounding "atrocities" to the point of being numb to atrocities, Kurz did not hold to the moral tipping point. In Kurz's eyes, there is no difference between killing people and killing cattle and sheep.
Willard, when he first confronted Kurz, was full of trepidation and did not feel that Kurz was an "abnormal" person. But in the end, in the sacrifice of the natives to slash the cow, Willard slashed Kurz and cut Kurz like a cow, just as Kurz once killed a cow and killed everyone else.
Going back to the beginning of the film, it was thought that ending the rule of a soldier, or "executing" the colonel, in the military way, was at most a matter of guns and shells. But when Willard "executes" a living person knife after knife, the barbarism of war is pushed to the extreme.
This may be the most terrible thing about a war.
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