Platoon is a film being held during the Guerre of Vietnam written and carried out by Oliver Stone in 1986. It is partly inspired by the own life of Oliver Stone who is him even committed as voluntary for the Guerre of the Vietnam where it was wounded twice.

Synopsis

In 1967, the young person Chris Taylor wishing to serve its country, voluntarily engages in the Guerre of Vietnam. It is affected with the 25e division of infantry, in a section ( platoon in English meaning group) which underwent losses at the time of recent combat. Its enthusiasm disappears quickly while it carries out interminable patrols day and night and becomes exhausted to dig holes being useful like defensive position, drudgery with several others assigned to the blue ones. After a ambush at the time it is slightly wounded, Taylor is integrated little by little with more tested soldiers.

At the time of an operation in the jungle, its unit discovers a complex of bunkers. Whereas they excavate a hiding place, two soldiers are killed by a box trapped with a bomb. After having left the bunkers, the soldiers discover the corpse of the one as of their, disappeared whereas it was posted in sentinel at the time of the excavation of the bunkers. The unit then carries on its road to a country village where combatants Viêt-Cong would have been seen. They find there food in mass and masks of weapons. The inhabitants say to be forced by the forces Vietnameses of north to help them. Tired and with notch, from the soldiers to their frustration relating to the recent loss their comrades pass on several peasants whom they torture and kill. At the time of a interrogation, the Barnes sergeant carries out the woman of the chief of village in front of the eyes of many soldiers and threat his daughter when the Elias sergeant intervenes. A brawl between the two men follows. On its side, Taylor saves two girls of the village about to be violated by several soldiers. The section sets out again after having put fire at the village.

After the incident of the interrogation, the Elias sergeant complains with his captain who promises the martial court with Barnes if the facts are proven. The sympathy of Taylor, initially acquired in Barnes leans now for the Elias sergeant while those which are behind Barnes speak to assassinate Elias to prevent it from testifying.

At the time of a new patrol, the section is taken in ambush by Viêt-Cong S and sudden of new losses. Lieutenant Wolfe is more or less disabled and Elias then proposes to take along some men with him to counter a probable enemy attack on their side. Lieutenant Wolfe is not agreement but Elias with the approval of Barnes. Elias thus leaves with three men of which Taylor. The tactics go but the Barnes sergeant comes to seek the three soldiers and says to them to evacuate while he affirms outward journey to seek Elias. In fact, once it found it, it cuts down it coldly and, crossing Taylor which also returns to seek Elias, announces to him that Elias was killed. While the last helicopters of evacuation take off with Barnes, Taylor and other men, they see Elias running in direction of the place of evacuation, continued by tens of soldiers Vietcong, but it is too late and it is completed by its prosecutors.

Taylor suspects Barnes of having assassinated Elias.

The company is returned on the face in the same zone where an enemy attack of scale prepares. Almost all the members of the section die in the battle under enemy fire and an American air attack with napalm. Taylor survives it. It recovers conscience at dawn after the battle, it is seized of a rifle AK-47 and starts to wander without goal in the jungle strewn with corpses. Among those, it finds the Barnes sergeant, wounded during the combat and the slaughtering.

The film finishes with the evacuation of Taylor, wounded during the attack.

Comment

The central subject of film is the combat of the two sergeants, Barnes and Elias, two figures paternal for the young soldier who hesitates between the two. Barnes symbolizes the brute force, blind, the armed wing of a State, that which can only kill in the life. Finally this force appears unverifiable. On the other hand Elias is the moral conscience, that which refuses to be degraded, even when the enemy is itself cruel. It represents a christic figure in film, on several occasions one sees it the arms in cross, in particular when it dies. It is also that which is undoubtedly most lucid, it does not believe in the victory. Finally, like he says it at the end of film, Taylor feels like born these two different fathers. On a second level, one can see there America divided between go away - war which want a victory whatever is the price and those which think that with this play America loses its heart in a conflict lost in advance.

This film shows aspects disturbing of the war of Vietnam like the abuse of authority of the soldiers aguerris on the blue ones, the assassination of unpopular officers (one spoke about “fragging”), the fact that the majority of the privates are the poor, the reprisals on the civil population. One can make an autobiographical parallel, Stone him even being engaged voluntarily. But the film is not lesspatriotic or anti-war.

Data sheet

References

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