War film has long been used to show the horrors and triumphs of nations’ veterans and heroes. It has also been used as a tool for propaganda to showcase why one’s nation is in the right, and others are in the wrong. It is one of the most effective methods to do this because people are always interested when a war is being talked about. According to Sheffield, “War intrigues people from all walks of life.” (1) However, war film also holds the power to show the people of different nations their own perspectives, help them understand each other better, and further create a world of peace and unity.

            Russia and the United States of America have historically had their fair share of differences. The Cold War took place between the Soviet Union and the United States, beginning shortly after the end of World War II. This conflict lasted 45 years beginning in 1945 and coming to a close in 1991. Although the United States and the Soviet Union worked together to defeat the Axis Powers during World War II, their differences inevitably led to conflict. The two nations never directly engaged in combat; thus, the conflict became known as the Cold War. This conflict mainly consisted of the two nations increasing their military and resources due to the threat of nuclear war, “expanding their global influence, and undermining the other’s way of life in the eyes of the world.” (Hendrickson) With the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 the Cold War came to an end. There are still issues between the two countries to this day. Both nations have created many works to portray their nation’s views on war. Perhaps by comparing some of the works from these nations, one can better understand the other to help clear up some fog that has been obscuring each other’s views and begin to co-exist peacefully.

            The first film being examined is Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket (1987). It is based on Gustav Hasford’s novel The Short Timers (1979). It is an American-made war film about the life of soldiers in boot camp and the Vietnam War. According to Winter, “War as madness takes over in Full Metal Jacket, a tale of disillusionment and savagery.” Stanley Kubrick is one of film’s most accomplished and iconic filmmakers of all time. He was nominated for 64 awards with 43 wins in his career with one of those wins being an Oscar. Full Metal Jacket has been nominated for 15 awards, winning 8 of them. It was a nominee at the 1988 Oscars for Best Adapted Screenplay. It is “a challenging, oddly stylized work that has been called the most authentic of war films in its portrayal of the moral chaos of Vietnam” (Gruben). The film begins at boot camp, where Sergeant Hartman is introduced to us. Leonard Lawrence, one of the men he is responsible for training is quickly shown to be slower, weaker, and less capable than the other men. Hartman gives him the nickname “Gomer Pyle” as a way to make fun of him. After some time, Pyle is put into the same squad as James T. “Joker” Davis. This is done as an effort to improve Pyle. One day, Hartman finds a donut in Pyle’s locker. Hartman punishes the whole platoon and not just Pyle. The platoon was not very happy with Pyle, so one night, the entire platoon beat Pyle while he was in bed. This is done in an attempt to motivate him to do better. From the outside it seemed to work. Pyle began to improve in his responsibilities as a marine but Joker began to notice Pyle slipping away from reality, only being able to form a relationship with his gun. He would even speak to it like it was another person. On the last night of boot camp, Joker found Pyle sitting on a latrine with his rifle. Pyle has completely lost it and begins to shout the Rifleman’s Creed. Hartman comes in to berate Pyle, but Pyle kills him. Immediately following, Pyle kills himself. Joker was left to look at this scene in horror. The film then jumps forward to Da Nang, Vietnam. Here we follow Joker on his missions in Vietnam until the movie comes to a close after Joker kills a Vietnamese female sniper.

            Religion, spirituality, sanity, and identity are all major points in this film. According to Brewer, “Kubrick shows how the young men’s training for war undermines the military’s claim to value soldiers’ spiritual wellbeing in favor of converting them to an institutionalized ‘war-culture’ that pays lip-service to Christianity.” Kubrick’s goal in this movie was not necessarily to get his audience thinking about war but how war affects people. Particularly in this movie, about how war affects soldiers. According to Bisson, “Full Metal Jacket explores the deepest recesses of human psychology and is grounded in the complex ironies of terrestrial existence.” The first act of this film is entirely about how Hartman beats down on his soldiers to try to mold them into ruthless killers. According to Perel, “Kubrick's Marine Corps, dehumanizes its men and reshapes them into desensitized killing machines who lack a strong individual identity once they go through basic training.” The goal is not only to make them kill but to make it something they are proud of. Religion is used as a tool to justify this. According to Brewer, “FMJ focuses on the dangers of perverting religious faith to convince young recruits that killing is not merely acceptable, but is an act worthy of praise.” The novel begins with a warning about future times: “If you ladies leave my island, if you survive recruit training, you will be a minister of death, praying for war. And proud.” (25) According to Brewer, “The reference to ministers who seek battle illustrates how religious discourse is employed ironically to decivilize the young recruits. Gerheim works to desensitize them to injunction ‘thou shalt not kill’ and to revalue killing as a worthy action that should elicit no feelings of remorse or shame.” Being berated over and over with twisted religious claims while enduring taxing physical and mental training increases the chances that one may begin to indulge in these radical ideas. It is a constant struggle for one to retain their humanity in an environment where humanity is meant to be tossed out. Joker becomes deeply torn at this, as seen in Vietnam, repping a peace sign on his uniform, while “Born to Kill” is written across his helmet. This righteous killing mindset had been instilled in thousands of soldiers but it may have been the thing that kept them alive. They were “filled with the twin obsessions of Death and Peace” (Herr 103) (Moore).

            The next film being examined is Elem Klimov’s magnum opus Come and See (1985). It is based on the novel I Am From the Fiery Village (1977) by Ales Adamovich. Adamovich also co-wrote the screenplay with Klimov. This film is regarded by many to be the greatest anti-war film of all time. According to Prozorovskaya, “The director managed to create at all levels of the narrative a powerful picture of a war, chilling with its authenticity, where evil and violence are elevated to the Absolute.” Elem Klimov is the winner of 6 film awards. Come and See is the winner of 3 awards. The Soviet Union prevented the filming of this project by forbidding the arts from portraying realism. Authorities attempted to bargain with Klimov, saying if he would just alter the script to fit their suggestions, he could begin filming immediately. Klimov stayed ten toes down until the authorities gave in and let him begin to film. Klimov would spend the next nine months creating one of the most important war films in history. Sragow  says, “It rivals Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal as an apocalyptic vision of mortal fear and mass sadism flaying every vestige of faith, hope, and charity in a scarred quarter of the world.” The title of this film comes from the Book of Revelation. Revelation 6:7-8 says, “And when he opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature saying, Come. And I saw, and behold, a pale horse: and he that sat upon him, his name was Death; and Hades followed with him. And there was given unto them authority over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with famine, and with death, and by the wild beasts of the earth.” (ASV) This verse gives an idea of how dark and sinister the acts portrayed in this film truly are.

            We meet our protagonist, Flyora, a 14-year-old boy living with his family in Byelorussia. It is 1943, and Hitler’s army is invading his homeland. As a young boy, he does not understand the horrors of war just yet, but he dreams of becoming a hero and defending his homeland. His family does not let him volunteer to fight. Eventually, he leaves home and joins a fighting unit. He is posted as a sentry and is told to shoot down anyone who does not know the password. He meets a young girl there named Glasha. She is working as a nurse for the camp, and the two bond quickly. The camp is attacked and bombed and Flyora is partially deafened from the explosions. The two of them return to his village, but his home is deserted. He insists they are hiding on a nearby island. Glasha sees something he doesn’t, a pile of executed dead bodies. She decides not to tell him. Eventually, she does tell him as they are searching for his family. Rubezh, who is a partisan fighter crosses paths with the two and takes them to the surviving villagers. The village elder tells Flyora of his family’s deaths. He tries to take his own life out of guilt but is saved. Rubezh takes him and two other men to retrieve food from a warehouse that is close by. Upon arrival, they find it is guarded by German soldiers. They attempted to retreat but the two other men are killed by a land mine. Rubezh and Flyora then steal a cow, but a German machine gun takes out Rubezh and the cow. Flyrora then tries stealing a horse but is caught by the owner. The owner decides to help him hide. He is taken to Perekhody, and he is given a new identity. The village is surrounded and herded into a church. Flyora and a young woman escape the church, but the woman is caught and dragged to a truck and raped. The Germans burn the church and leave. He leaves the village to find that partisans have ambushed the Germans. He recovers a rifle and the girl he escaped the church with finds him. The partisans captured eleven Germans and they plead for their lives. They pour petrol on the Germans with the intent to burn them alive, but they are shot before they can be lit aflame. As they are leaving, Flyora sees a portrait of Adolf Hitler and shoots it with his rifle multiple times. Flashbacks of Hitler’s life are played and when Hitler is shown as a baby on his mother’s lap, Flyora stops firing shots and breaks down crying. Originally, this film would be titled “Kill Hitler”. However, one of the most important parts of this story is the innocence of Flyora. According to Brubaker, “Klimov firmly believed that Flyora should ‘remain human’ and not harbor the same brutality and ‘desire to kill’ that led to the horrors that Europe was forced to endure”. A title card reads “628 Belorussian villages were destroyed, along with all their inhabitants”. Flyora then rejoins his group and the movie ends.

            Klimov frames this film in many unorthodox ways. The film is not necessarily meant to be left to much interpretation. It does what most war films fail to accomplish. It truly leaves its audience with a sense of horror and dread. Fanu states, “Klimov seems to have been intent on attaching a level of physical realism to the story at hand that had seldom been attempted before, even in the harsh annals of Soviet cinema.” It does an amazing job of providing the audience with a realistic vision of how the cruel and sadistic nature of man can completely and utterly wreck the innocence and love that a young child has. According to Michaels, “The emotional impact of Come and See can be overwhelming.”

These two films showcase two completely different stories from two completely different nations. However, the point of making these two films was the same. To show the fragility, complexity, and persistence of humanity. Flyora was not allowed to be a kid. Flyora saw things that no child nor person should ever have to see. He experienced things that changed him forever. He was pushed to the point of suicide but was saved. Pyle was not so lucky. Pyle was broken down enough to the point of psychoticism and took another human life along with his own. Joker became a killer whose motive was peace. All three of these characters were innocent souls destroyed by one common thing. War.

            Both Full Metal Jacket and Come and See offer perspectives on the terror of war from the view of America and Russia. Full Metal Jacket displays the dehumanizing effects of the Vietnam War on American soldiers. Stanley Kubrick portrays this through the brutality of military training and the psychological and mental toll of fighting in a war. Come and See shows the hardships and suffering that Soviet civilians were put through during World War II. This film provides a gut-wrenching picture of the horrors of war through many acts committed by the invading Nazis. Both of these films provide insights into the cost of war. However, they do this through separate cultural and historical lenses. Full Metal Jacket displays America’s collective trauma of Vietnam and the hardships endured during the post-war era, while Come and See represents Russia’s recollection of the Great Patriotic War and the resolve of its nation’s people in the wave of suffering. When placed side by side, these films provide a complex examination of war’s impact on individuals, societies, and nations.

            These films also are a tool to help each nation understand each other better. The films are set in two different contexts and made by two different nations, but both show the physical, mental, and emotional toll that war places on people, communities, and nations. By displaying the horrors of combat in war, the audience is reminded of the suffering experienced by soldiers and civilians alike on both sides of the conflict. By watching these films, audiences from America and Russia can better understand each respective nation's lasting national trauma. Knowing this, Full Metal Jacket and Come and See help build a bridge between cultural, political, and historical valleys between the two nations and help to better understand each nation.

            These films help to further create a world of peace and unity. Both of these films force their audience to face the realities of violence and its impact. They draw out feelings of understanding and empathy that inspire viewers to want to live in a world of peace and unity. From this inspiration is the realization that humanity isn’t about nationality, ethnicity, or ideology. Humanity is the collective of all humans, no matter the difference. They are a reminder that peace can only be attained by confronting painful truths throughout our shared history and by coming together to prevent war from happening again. Both films help further a world of peace and unity by forcing their audiences to confront the realities of the sadistic, psychotic, and egotistical parts of human nature and challenge their audience to strive to eliminate a future where the horrors of the past resurface in the world of tomorrow.

            Some might say that film is not a suitable method of finding similarities between these two nations. Each filmmaker has their own agenda of what they want their film to portray. They can say whatever they want, so how can a film be a reliable source to find similarities between people and nations if one person or a few people decide on the message? Also, they might say that film is an unreliable source for this topic due to its artistic capability of being left to the opinion of the viewer. Due to film being an art, it is left up to the view of the audience to form their own opinion on it. Some may agree with what the film had to say, some may disagree, and some may find a little bit of both. That is how art is; that is how it has always been and how it always will be.

However, their arguments rebut themselves. By having different interpretations of these two works from people of different nations, people are able to discuss their differences and state why they believe or disagree with something the film has to say. These discussions often lead to some sort of agreement or middle ground. The whole point is to have an avenue by which people are able to express their own ideologies and beliefs, present it to an audience, and then let the audience decide how they feel about it. Due to human nature, discussions are bound to happen, and through those discussions, some disagreements will occur, but some agreements will also be found.

            War film holds the power to show the people of different nations their own perspectives and help to better understand each other and further create a world of peace and unity. It is much more powerful than just entertainment or propaganda. It is an avenue where humanity can be studied and discussed and can bring change to the world. Through the lens of Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket and Elem Klimov’s Come and See, the audience is confronted with the brutality and harshness of reality and the devastating impact war brings to people, societies, and humanity as a whole. Although these films were brought to life by groups of people from vastly different lives and cultures, they both find common ground: That war brings pain, suffering, and destruction to any who is in its path.

Works Cited

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Brubaker, Laura. “Klimov’s ‘Come & See’ as a Work of Cinematic Response.” Klimov’s “Come & See” as a Work of Cinematic Response | Writing Program, BU Arts & Sciences Writing Program, www.bu.edu/writingprogram/journal/past-issues/issue-3/brubaker/. Accessed 12 Apr. 2024.

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Gruben, Patricia, “Practical Joker: the invention of a protagonist in Full Metal Jacket.” Literature-Film Quarterly, vol. 33, no. 4, Oct. 2005, pp. 270+. Gale Academic OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A140835703/AONE?u=odl_tcc&sid=bookmark-AONE&xid=e4d174c0. Accessed 2 Apr. 2024

Hendrickson, Burleigh. “Read: Cold War - An Overview (Article).” Khan Academy, Khan Academy, www.khanacademy.org/humanities/whp-origins/era-7-the-great-convergence-and-divergence-1880-ce-to-the-future/74-end-of-empires-betaa/a/read-cold-war-an-overview-beta. Accessed 3 May 2024.

Moore, Janet C. “For fighting and for fun: Kubrick’s complicitous critique in Full Metal Jacket.” Velvet Light Trap, spring 1993, pp. 39+. Gale OneFile: Fine Arts, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A90190406/PPFA?u=odl_tcc&sid=bookmark-PPFA&xid=631035e. Accessed 30 March 2024.

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