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Two War Movies

Watched Roman Polanski's The Pianist and Stanley Kubrik's Full Metal Jacket in the last week. I have enjoyed other Polanski movies but The Pianist was a disappointment. One jarring note in the movie was the physical appearance of a family in the middle of the Holocaust. Not a hair out of place, in glowing health and almost too well dressed for their horrific circumstances. Just that was too much of a distraction from the storyline making immersion impossible. I was expecting something memorable like Schindler's List but this was not even close.

Full Metal Jacket will be a movie to remember for both its theme and treatment. The "Jungian" duality of man that the protagonist feels and lives was portrayed amazingly well. The morphing of normal men into killing machines at bootcamp in the first part of the movie was more gut-wrenching than the second part - the reality of the Vietnam war itself.

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