By Zulfiqar Gul
Recently I had the opportunity to watch English movie titled “ Full Metal Jacket” that follows a pragmatic US Marine who observes the dehumanizing affects the Vietnam War has on his fellow marines from the brutal basic training to the bloody street fighting set in Hue City during 1968 Tet Offensive. Spiked with the scathing humor, FMJ scores a direct-hit on one of the most continuous wars of 20th century that details conflict’s horrors without glorifying any side’s line. The movie is ranked the next best masterpiece to “Platoon” in the Vietnam War films’ queue. Every scene is so stunningly shot to the real that digs its roots deep in the head, transporting us back into the era of late 1960s. That was a period when Tet Offensive was launched by North Vietnam into Southern part. For the first time shifted the battle zone from the jungle base to urban one, intruding into 100 cities and towns of South Vietnam including strategic city Saigon. Taken by a big surprise and screwed up in their strong base, the Americans recaptured the lost ground in just a matter of weeks but not before the operation wasted too many human lives. However, it was just a beginning of a dreadful end. After six years, in 1974, hawks in Washington recognized that the conflict had gotten over-stretched as they adopted the policy of “cut and run”, leaving the job undone despite enormous resources and human lives input. In the West, their subjects have got the space of crying on those plans that turned total disaster, we don’t. If we did, the space would have always been restricted by so-called narrow national interest. In country like ours, great movies never get made while being forced to decorate false patriotism. Don’t get puzzled that why we haven’t come across a single movie on 1971 debacle so far that is as crucial for us as Vietnam misadventure for Americans. Being a nation aged 61, now we should get our priorities modified and start critically looking at the past misdeeds through the eye of a free cinema. Director Kubrick has hardly done anything wrong except recreating a perfect brutal reality — that was Vietnam War.
