Full Metal Jacket

Platoon's scene in the village, where innocent Vietnamese people are killed, clearly provokes sympathy from the audience. On the other hand, Full Metal Jacket had a short scene that almost made me feel guilty for sympathizing with the Vietnamese people, despite what side they were on. Towards the end of the the movie in FMJ, the soldiers believe they are being ambushed until they realize only a single sniper is shooting after them. This sniper ultimately kills three of their men, leaving the surviving soldiers furious and ready for revenge. I also felt the same way, which must have been Kubrick's intentions. When the men finally discover where the sniper is hiding, they shoot her right before she is able to kill Joker. At this point I was actually excited they found her, and it wasn't until she lay there suffering that I felt any remorse for her. As she lay on the ground, the men stood in silence for a moment, contemplating what needed to be done. She began to pray, and a close up focused on each man's face, showing their confusion. She then pleaded to be shot in order to end her suffering, repeating her herself over and over again. This effect built up the tension and anticipation, which was obvious in each man's expression. Because this woman just murdered three of their very close comrades, none of the soldiers wanted to be the one to step up and end her suffering. Joker refused to let her lay there and rot, eventually shooting her. He somehow found it in himself to feel sympathy for this woman who, just five minutes ago, was only a bullet away from killing him. Kubrick's use of a woman for the sniper is unexpected, probably in an attempt to make her look more helpless than a man would as she begged for her life to end. Maybe his point was to show that the sniper woman was another human being with family, friends, and a sense of national pride just like the American solders, and she wasn't just a killing machine, but in fact was probably just as unhappy about the war as they were.