Is it possible that it ended like this, two shameless people were having a meal, and the officer walked in, not wanting to look at the ugly faces of these two guys at a glance. Pull out the pistol and kill these two poor animals with precision and speed just like they say brave soldiers.
Then the colonel, as a real human being or in order to maintain the last dignity of human beings, put the gun at his head and ended his own life. Because Kubrick understands that even though life is full of uncertainty and fragility, the ugliness of human beings will serve as the last cruel atomic bomb to destroy innocent lives. (that is, the experiencer who is meaningless but still generating)
The colonel knew that wishful idealism was not to be enjoyed, so he had to choose death, because he could not live ugly. But Kubrick did not do this, the colonel would not bully nor be defeated by the hopeless ugliness of mankind, but continued to return to the battlefield to create after feeling desolate for the poor man. What he wanted was a real war, a real revolution, and he didn't lose because it was a joke that didn't deserve to be called a war. Kubrick offered a possibility to continue.
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