The Manchurian Candidate (1962)

Second viewing; first viewed on November 10, 1996

During the Korean War, a platoon goes missing for a few days and returns with a common memory of a confrontation with the enemy in which the sergeant comes out as a hero. Back in America, some members of the platoon have similar recurring nightmares. The sergeant begins behaving strangely and meets with some shady characters who seem to have control over him. His stepfather, whom he hates, is a rightwing politician who acts under the influence of a domineering wife.

There is a strange asymmetry between comedy and tragedy (or drama, which is a more prevalent serious form in recent times). A drama or tragedy may be involutarily comic, whereas the reverse is never the case. This film, for instance, is deadly serious in tone, but everything in it had a comical effect on me. There are many issues with the plot, and some of them are discussed in IMDB's Message Boards. The most important observation to be made about it is that it is a critique of conservatism, and a hallucinating one at that, and the comicity stems mainly from that. There is not a bit of psychological realism in this movie, and the most flagrant violation of plausibility is of course the behavior of the woman who becomes Lt. Marco's girlfriend. Whatever interest the movie may have lies precisely in that it states a position, and is a symptom of a zeitgeist. The technical acumen with which it is made is important to make sure that it succeeds at its goal, which is evidently brainwashing its audience into an adherence to liberal principles.

Rating: 56 (down from 65)