M*A*S*H*
Experiencing M*A*S*H* during this day and age surely is a blessing. We have the ability to compare it to all war films of the Vietnam Era and can only then truly see it’s difference amongst all the bullets, all the cursing, and all the crying that those films repeated.
M*A*S*H* starts off depressing enough. Promoting it’s title theme song, “Suicide is painless”, the audience grows an expectation that will not be met. But is this a bad thing? The days that this film emerged from needed a comic side to war, and M*A*S*H* gives it to us in the first shot to follow it’s depressing title sequence. The characters are wonderfully written, but would be easier to differentiate if they weren’t all wearing identical uniforms throughout most of the picture. There is also a large amount casualty that this film exudes, which again separates itself from other war films. The lack of respect towards the commander’s orders produce both comedy and sets a mood. Accenting this mood is the lack of respect towards women that resurfaces countless times through the movie.
But even these characters aren’t void of emotion. Few times, there are sentimental moemnts in this movie (“Too late Boon, you’ve killed him”) , but they always have a good comedy sequence following shortly to clean up the mess.
The directing is also sometihng to be heralded. The dusty look of the film sets up a mood that would seem to lack any spark for humor, but it’s there. Unfortunately, I didn’t see these drab colors as a blessing to the scene. Sure it promotes realism, but at what expense? The only color other than shades of green and grey that this film produces is the rare moment of red, seen in the operating room, the suicide scene, and the golf scene. Towards the end of the film, we are granted some breathing room for our patience- a bright and sunny Japan and a colorful game of football. If only one of these two scene were closer to the middle of the film, the putrid color scheme wouldn’t have gotten ot me.
But the directing is noticed in more than just the color. The editing that the football scene allows is beautiful and very well patterned. Topping that off is the ending, which works as a marvelous reversal of the beginning, allowing the audience to realize that is is just as easy to leave a warzone as it is to enter one.
Following the directing and story is a talented use of camera and audio. The in-scene zooms are just another accent to the idea of realism, where as panning from conversation to conversation under the dinning tent in the begining of the movie does the same. The dinning scenes, much like many others, are full of background noise and murmuring that is leveled just perfectly enough to avoid confusion and to add to the realism. The music track of the film is also noted in that it contains only three types of songs- the “Suicide is Painless” tracks, the native Korean songs which keep the situation both uplifting and grounded, and the classical orchestrated songs which seem to have been sampled from the classic World War II films that they mock.
Overall, I would have to say that this film is definitely not one to go overlooked. It stands forward in the war movie genre and promotes a connection between comedy and drama that isn’t too succesfuly explored. And I certainly understand why there was so much demand for a television series that lasted for eleven seasons.
Added: Saturday, June 07, 2003 Reviewer: Nicholas Ribera Score: Hits: 899
|