American Sniper

Wow! Absolutely no response on the last post, that rises some theories, that everybody agrees with me but don’t want to admit it, or that I was so offensive that nobody wanted to be find close to that, anyway the time is now for another Biopic and is the other one that created some controversy:

 

American Sniper

I have heard a lot of this, lots of things about US propaganda and a rubber baby but almost none of the movie itself. That is horrible, I mean the US propaganda is in the eye of the beholder and the rubber baby is less than 2 minutes, so let’s get talking of the movie and the portrait of things and then clarify these 2 points that are the ones that get more attention.

The movie pictures the life of a US soldier from childhood, his formation and how he decides to take certain steps on his life that takes him to enlist and ending as a sniper for the US fighting brown people. So far so good, we see his life in the battlefield and then his life between tours, and you realize that his mind is more set to be in the battlefield than in a calm US town, and well is difficult to get pass that kind of tension, then he goes again in the tours and back again until he decides to retire from active duty and tries to adapt again to a more average life.

The point of seeing him on and off battles is to see that he is a warrior, and I’m not saying that in a “America Fuck Yeah!” kind of way, like they said you can take a warrior out of the battle but you can’t take the battle out of a warrior. What I’m saying is that there are people how enjoys war, enjoys battles, the conflicts, to having someone wanting to kill them but not the simple killing. There are lots of people who think they are that way and at the sight of conflict they freeze, others are normal but in combat something triggers inside of them and they turn into someone different. But them they can’t go back to how they were, and in peace time they are always restless, how they said in the movie “Paton” the lack of war is what is going to kill him.

And in this movie we see that, we are not looking at a hero or a demigod he was a sniper doing his job, some people take him for a hero because they got out alive because of him, well people call the firefighters heroes because they take people from dangerous places, so is almost the same. But in the movie we see a soldier how can’t find rest out of the conflict, how he doesn’t consider himself a hero. We see how he is totally out of the world when he is back in home but how is totally in the moment when he is in the war zone.

So yes, to me the guy was completely crazy. But I understand how he though, because that kind of people is like loaded guns ready to fire, what they just did was point him in the direction they needed him.

Now the rubber baby, as I said is a 2 minute scene and the baby is just a lump they carry, I noticed but I didn’t cared, I mean you pay attention of the movie, and what is happening, or then someone will tell me that they could not get into the movie because the killings are not real. For all I know they could have used a kilo of tortillas instead of a baby and the scene would have had the same impact.

Is it American Propaganda? Is it pro war? No, well to me it isn’t. Because it doesn’t portray the war as something glorious, more like it is, an event where you go meet friends and then you look at them get killed and scars you for life. And yes at the end there are a ton of US flags but is because that is the actual footage of his funeral. The people considered him a hero and the news make him that big. Yes he killed a lot of people but he also saved a lot, of a nonsense war that they should have never been there to start with but even so, if you are already there better make sure to help all you can to make it back.

In a related note, did you know how hard is to get the movie poster without the US flag? Man it was difficult :P

So in short is a good movie, if you like to get into the character’s mind by his/her actions then you’ll like to see this guy go around. There will be people that will quote the book, saying that the guy watched everything black and white, but the movie message is very grey, like every Clint Eastwood movie, that even having a dark sad ending you get something good from that, if you pay enough attention. Then is a movie that is not for all but if you liked Clint Eastwood movies then you might like this one.