The theme of this film is "failure of idealists", and the script really does a twist and turns against the confidence of idealists. The colonel who really cherishes the soldiers stands out from the top of the army in this film. The bureaucracy at the top of the army is only busy sacrificing soldiers in the name of patriotism in exchange for the reputation of siege and the flattery of inferior officers.
The whole film Colonel Dax experienced a total of three failures. The first time was when he rejected the tactics of attacking Ant Hill but was threatened with suspension by General Mireau, who had to lead his beloved soldiers on the charge in order to prevent him from being transferred, resulting in a large number of unnecessary deaths. The second was defending three soldiers accused of cowardice in court but was repeatedly interrupted by irresponsible military tribunals, resulting in the impossibility of defending and the inevitability of soldiers being shot. The third time Colonel Dax hoped that General Broulard would prevent the execution of the three soldiers on trial, but the shooting took place nonetheless.
Before the three failures, Kubrick paved the way for the audience to reverse the tragedy. Before the first failure, General Mireau hypocritically rejected General Broulard's tactical attack, talked about his love for the soldiers sanely, and then pretended to patrol the battlefield and greeted the soldiers hypocritically; But lured by promotion and fame, he, like an incompetent and comical official in a political satire, undertakes the impossible task of putting his warriors in danger to make a name for himself; even more contemptible is the moment he charges He also wanted to order an attack on his own soldiers who were unwilling to go out into the trenches to die. Before the second defeat, General Broulard agreed to the colonel's request to defend the three soldiers under control; Kubrick filmed the colonel's patient guidance to the soldiers and the court documents after the passage showed the colonel's careful preparation, all of which Elaborate preparation and the identity of the Colonel's former lawyer seem to declare that justice is inevitable; unfortunately, the indifference and unreasonableness of the court make it all come to nothing. The third time was when the colonel got the testimony of everyone. He thought that he could save the three soldiers and let General Mireau get the punishment he won. Unfortunately, it was misread by General Broulard that he wanted to pull Mireau down and take the position; he eventually died. Unstopped, he also lost all the patience of the military's top brass.
The film swings between happy endings and tragedy three times, finally telling the audience that no one can truly achieve justice in war.
In addition to the fact that the colonel pointed out that "patriotism is the last refuge of hooligans", the film also accuses the death of idealism. The former is only a direct manifestation of the lack of justice, and the motives are very easy to understand material desires; the latter is a question of the fundamental motive of justice, and the cause of a single event of the former is generalized to the motive of each event, so that all actions can be It's like the pursuit of profit, and the latter is the event that will really make justice die - when no one believes in justice, no one will really do justice.
At the end of the film, the colonel heard his soldiers collectively sing "The Faithful Hussar", a German folk song with the theme of soldiers traveling far away and not being able to accompany their loved ones before they fell ill. He couldn't bear to tell them the news of going to the front again. Time is the best kindness to every soldier who has no chance to return home, but may die in a foreign country at any time.
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