Tough, tough toys for tough tough boys

This week: war films, the death of Miles Kingston and remarks on Kigali's new upper-class club

The other day I blogged about how annoyed I was that Science-fiction didn't get the recognition it richly deserves. About a week ago I was thinking the same applies to war films. I'm not talking about the cartoonish ones like Rambo that no one should take seriously- I'm talking about the classics which show war as it really is.
I was thinking about this because I had one of those '6 in 1' DVD's to devour one Saturday evening and this one was a compilation of some of the best war films ever made. I had seen Platoon in a state of extreme intoxication while I was at University and although most of it flew over my head, I was still aware that I was in the presence of greatness. Having watched it again, I'm glad to say that I was right. Infact I think the title of greatest war film is a tossup between Platoon and Thin Red Line (which I had seen more than once before) There were two more good ones on there- casualties of war and A bright shining lie.
In Platoon, Charlie Sheen's fellow soldiers cannot believe he volunteered for the war but it makes sense-having grown up in a well-to-do family, the war in Vietnam to him is more abstract than anything else. For the rest of the men in his platoon, most of whom have been drafted for the war, the war is all too real: a hellish nightmare of hours in the mud and nights spent sleeping in the jungle and dodging bullets, bombs and snakes regularily-acutely aware that any second might be their last. Basically to borrow someone else's phrase, they are all falling apart piece by piece. Things very quickly take a Lord of the Flies turn and Sheen's character watches nearly everyone around him degenerate into savage behaviour. Talking about morals or what is right rings hollow because after all this is war-the ordinary rules that hold together the outside world are no longer held to apply by members of the platoon. It's Philip Zimbardo's prison experiment carried out to its full conclusion. Infact Platoon has more profound things to say about the human condition than 95 percent of the films released these days with such gems of wisdom as 'follow your heart/dreams' or 'Find yourself' or whatever rubbish their marketing people have thought up to try and make you think the film isnt crap.
With Thin Red Line, there is the suggestion that war itself can be profound- that you can 'find' yourself in the chaos. One of the characters becomes completely detached from the war, deserts the army and wanders around seemingly experiencing a daily epiphany like Saint Paul on acid. Meanwhile director Terrence Malick uses endless, silent shots of beautiful forests making the film a very curious hybrid of a war film and a meditation on nature. It comes in at a bladder-challenging three and a half hours, but is well worth the effort.
While those two would probably be my favourite war films, I have a curious choice that would definitely make the top five- the Sam Mendes film jarhead set in the first gulf war. It's curious because its a war film without any war. After the soldiers have been trained and pumped up for months, they get the rug pulled out from under them at the end. Turns out there's not going to be a war after all- the mighty American air force have seen to that (Ground combat in that war lasted about 100 hours)The soldiers are utterly devastated and one of the characters nearly loses his mind with rage as he contemplates the fact that he will not actually be allowed to kill anyone. The army thinks the soldiers are going to be deligted that the war has virtually been called off, but they appear blissfully unaware that they have created monsters.
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Last week Miles Kingston died. He wrote a colummn for The Independent newspaper and he was just about the most eccentric columnist there was. He wrote about whatever tickled his fancy-sometimes it was an elaborate joke or an imaginary conversation or just an anecdote. It was always smart and funny and I always looked forward to reading them. I think many readers found his output a bit odd and weren't quite sure how to take his short, rambling pieces but his sheer longevity as a writer testified to the fact that quite a few people got it at least. R.I.P Kingston- you'll be sorely missed
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So there's a new upper-class club in Kigali. B Club doesn't appear to have a motto, but I think it just might be something from a Brett Easton Ellis novel or possibly one of Gordon Gekko's pithy comments in Wall Street.
I haven't been to the club, but what I find fascinating is its war on the proleteriat. The prices are not only eyewatering, but liable to get you an appointment with an eye specialist after prolonged exposure. You cant walk in wearing sneakers. Who would ever have pictured the humble sneaker as being on the frontline of a class war? Not yours truly. Meanwhile you can get snapped at for not being ostentatious enough once you are admitted in. If you arent making paper planes with 5,000 francs and tossing them gleefully at the waiters then the management consider you a lost cause.
Pretty soon, to get in you will need to get a stamp marked ELITE on your forehead after filling in a questionnaire. Ordering any drinks above 10,000 francs will result in the instant delivery of 5,000 volts of electricity to your person. Everyone present will then wallow in the deep, cooling waters of elitism while waiters hover menacingly with cattle prods to ensure the proper preservation of decorum. It's a brave new world. I for one can hardly wait...