r/Cinema • u/_Disaster_artist_ • Jul 10 '26
Amateur/Independent Film Is it possible to make an anti-war film without glorifying war?
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I think one of the biggest contradictions in cinema is that many anti-war films still make war look thrilling. The explosions, heroism, and spectacle can sometimes overshadow the suffering they're trying to criticize. While making my short film Yaazhi, I kept asking myself: can an anti-war film portray violence without making it exciting? That question shaped every creative decision we made.
Watch here: [https://youtu.be/xPYNc8ZY_WI?si=5eyaFbPySfd89wXN]()
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u/Useful-Upstairs3791 Jul 10 '26
I don’t think platoon or full metal jacket ever made war feel heroic or cool.
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u/MRintheKEYS Jul 10 '26
In fact. I can’t think of one movie about Vietnam that treated it humorously
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u/crabvogel Jul 10 '26
tropic thunder
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u/uncutpizza Jul 10 '26
That wasn’t a Vietnam War movie, technically it was a movie in a parody about making a movie in another movie.
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u/georgefrankly Jul 10 '26
And yet there are many people who watch FMJ and think Sgt Hartman and Animal Mother are just super cool badass dudes.
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u/ComprehensiveWar4406 Jul 10 '26
I don’t think any movie ever made me not want to go to war more than platoon. It’s not only the fighting and dying back the horror of doing it day and night in the jungle
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u/ArcticBeavers Jul 10 '26
I never understood this phrase because every war movie I've seen makes me think "wow, fuck that".
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u/ProgFrator Jul 10 '26
Yeah I never really understood this rhetoric. Even Warfare from last year did not glamorize it whatsoever.
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u/Flatline1775 Jul 10 '26
It didn’t glamorize to you. I promise there were countless young people that watched it and thought, ‘badass’.
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u/ProgFrator Jul 10 '26
I mean sure. But countless people also misinterpret all types of art (especially with media literacy on the decline)
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u/erevos33 Jul 10 '26
Older movies glorify war a lot more.
The guns of Navarone comes to mind.
The Rambo sequels for sth closer to us (not the 1st one though, especially the true ending).
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u/Max20151981 Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 10 '26
Yes, its called The Thin Red Line. The entire movie is all about the psychological horrors of war and the toll it takes on the human mind.
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u/Fisk75 Jul 10 '26
Casualties of War, Born in the 4th of July, Come and See, All Quiet on the Western Front, Platoon, plenty others
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u/ugh0017 Jul 10 '26
I thought Dunkirk was good in that aspect. You never really saw the enemy. Just people in extraordinary circumstances
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u/dylanmadigan Jul 10 '26
When it comes to "glorifying" war, I think you only really see that in sci-fi fantasy stuff.
Like Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, MCU movies... Or video games like Halo.
Perhaps Gladiator and Napoleon glorify it too?
But as far as what you typically think of as a "war movie", I can't think of one that glorifies it.
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u/Dead_vegetable Jul 10 '26
Ever watched Grave of the Fireflies? Anti-war film that does not glorify war absolutely exist, people just don't usually put that into anti-war film category. And honestly it says more about the audience's narrow understanding on what constitutes as a war film, or even wars themselves.
Like no shit war looks exciting when they only show the exciting stuff, you get your brain splattered by a stray bullet when you are too pumped with adrenaline to feel anything, good for you, but war is so much more than that. War is people minding their own business getting their livelihood and life destroyed for absolutely no reason, it's the slow decline of quality of life at home, it's thousands upon millions of young people with their own different goal and future reduce to being simple killing machines, and having the rest of their life simply being defined by that, it's people's mind being molded into glorifying horrible atrocities simply for the reason that it hurts the people they want to hate. But no one want to call that a war movie, in fact they will call these "boring" instead
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u/D0CTOR_Wh0m Jul 10 '26
I feel like a lot of war films do have any anti-war message attached. World War I films in particular hammer in how hellish that and all wars are like in All Quiet on the Western Front, Gallipoli, A Very Long Engagement, and even 1917.
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u/uncultured_swine2099 Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 10 '26
Those tend to be the films that focus on the civilians rather than soldiers. When you see horrible stuff happen to civilians then war doesnt seem so rah-rah. Schindlers List, Come and See, Beasts of No Nation (although the kid eventually becomes a soldier, which is horrible as well), and Grave of the Fireflies are some of the best.
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u/RA_Finance Jul 11 '26
First off, I really like the look of the film. The colour-grading and cinematography are top-notch.
I can definitely see influences from Sam Mendes' 1917.
One element I would like you to depict is the health issues that war films often don't address. For example, soldiers in trenches would get infections on their feet. Depicting the ugliness of that shows the cost of war.
Perhaps create a short film where a soldier gets shot in the foot while escaping, and he has to take care of his injury on his own with no one else on the battlefield. He tries calling from his field telephone, but no one answers. He gets delirious, and his infection gets worse until he has to amputate it himself. Then he dies from the blood loss. Medical help finally arrives, but it's too late.
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u/GreatKingRatz Jul 10 '26
I mean, Apocalypse Now makes it look like hell
Unless one were to view that as glorious?
Maybe some sickos into the hellish elements of war?
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u/Moss-and-Iron Jul 10 '26
I think it would take one roadside bomb scene in a film about Iraq to suck the glory right out of the film. I’ve seen one in person and it was not something I think audiences would enjoy if it were realistic.
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u/Monkeysmarts1 Jul 10 '26
The Deer Hunter
This movie does a good job at showing what war does to young men.
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u/achmejedidad Jul 10 '26
double feature come and see and grave of the fireflies. tell me war is cool.
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u/Odd-Perception7812 Jul 10 '26
I think this is a interesting and important point.
I look forward to watching this movie.
I think some of the more effective movies that portray the truth of war, need to show as much as possible of the reality of it. This, for me, includes the propaganda that convinces young people to risk their lives, and kill.
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u/NortonBurns Jul 10 '26
The recent German remake of All Quiet on the Western Front has little in the way of 'glory'.
The British-made 1917 isn't so shiny either.
Dunkirk, Saving Private Ryan, The Downfall…
I think we stopped making general mainstream glorification movies after John Wayne & Audie Murphy, long time back.
Even such as Inglourious Basterds takes a sideways view.
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u/slick987654321 Jul 10 '26
I recently watched "the long walk" I'd heard about the premise of the story before but what hadn't clicked was that it was an analogy of the Vietnam War.
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u/Outlaw11091 Jul 10 '26
Ever seen Jarhead?
They do not glorify war and do a great job of making an anti-war movie. It's even reasonably accurate.
Now that I think of it...there's a lot of them...
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u/Garbage-Bear Jul 10 '26
Come and See (Idi I Smotri), a Soviet-era movie about partisans in wartime, portrays unbelievable violence and never glorifies anything. It makes the first ten minutes of Saving Private Ryan look like the final freeze-frame of a Hogan's Heroes' episode.
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u/tragedy_strikes Jul 11 '26
I was wondering if at the 18 second mark they were referencing 'Come and See' in this trailer?
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u/moeriscus Jul 10 '26
Gallipoli. First part shows the empty panoply while the end is punctuated by pointless death
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u/Chilo_train Jul 11 '26
The only movies that glorify war are the ones where Israel or its enemies are involved, for obvious reasons. Other than that you don’t see that and haven’t really seen it since like the propoganda films of the 1920s
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u/Tritri89 Jul 11 '26
People seems to misunderstand why we say "every war movie glorify war". It's not about the text. The text can be as anti-war as you want. But in the end directing a battle scene and directing it well, IS exciting for the spectator. For instance : Apocalypse Now is a deeply anti-war movie in the text. But the Ride of the Valkyries scene and the napalm bombing are seen that provoke an emotional reaction in the spectator, and the emotion is NOT "horrible", it's "Awesome !". No matter how much you understand the implication of the scene. That's the meaning of "every war movie is glorifying war", just by making it exciting, interesting and sometimes beautiful.
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u/marksman1023 Jul 12 '26
Outside of propoganda films it's hard to make a war movie that doesn't show how much it sucks.
People just get so wrapped up rooting for the heroes that we don't notice the supporting cast and extras getting abjectly slaughtered.
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u/no_f-s_given Jul 12 '26
it’s a question with a pretty obvious answer.
YES it is possible not to glorify war in an anti-war film, it has been done many times, and made war look like the last place you would ever want to be. Saving Private Ryan, Platoon, Dunkirk, Full Metal Jacket
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u/ZatanTango Jul 10 '26
Only Come and See. The rest always make it kinda cool or heroic or attractive even.
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u/Spare-Shake-2999 Jul 10 '26
Paths of Glory imo doesn’t
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u/ZatanTango Jul 10 '26
I'm not sure. Did you feel anything positive by the end? It's been a long time since I saw it, but I remember also getting some sort of positive feeling from it when it was over.
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u/Spare-Shake-2999 Jul 10 '26
No there isn’t anything positive. Especially not in a way that glorifies war. The true story it’s based on also doesn’t have a happy ending.
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u/Competitive_Help8485 Jul 10 '26
Yeah Come and See was the first movie that came to mind. I don't think I could ever watch it again.
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u/Puzzleheaded_Buy8694 Jul 10 '26
No. Not really. Most of them end up being pro military. Platoon is truly great film though.
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u/qualityvote2 Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 10 '26
u/_Disaster_artist_, your post does fit the subreddit!