Film Critic of Slaughterhouse-Five

Film Critic of Slaughterhouse-Five

Slaughterhouse-Five is a book written by Kurt Vonnegut, on the experiences of Billy Pilgrim in WWII. his was interpreted into a film directed by George Roy Hill in 1972. THe film has many good aspects, as in tackling the time travelling, by fading people and voices in and out of the scene, however a specific important scene is done very poorly.      

The last scene in the book, Billy is in Dresden everything has settled down after the air raid, the area is quiet and in solitude. The POW including Billy seem to be what's left the germans had to go to fight, the citizens of Dresden had either been transported away, or burned on the spot, “The corpse mines were closed down. Then solders all left to fight the Russians... And then, one morning, they got up to discover that the door was unlocked. World War two was over.” The greatest most destructive war mankind has ever faced is over, just like that and these soldiers are left in a burnt abandoned city, and suddenly just in Vonnegut style, the last line is “One bird said to Billy Pilgrim, ‘Poo-tee-weet’”. The book finishes on the line, a line that has recurred in many different locations throughout the book. The meaning of which is, demonstrated by the tralfamadorians that life is what it is, there is always something bigger. The city has been flattened killing thousands of people and a bird happily sings away. this takes the reader to a small place, a place where no matter what we do to each other, its not the be all and end all. Its a dark but enlightening ending a cracked smile to the end of a terrible time.

The film on the other hand, has a very different ending, they are not in Dresden at all, they are on the planet of tralfamadore, Billy and Montana are happily living in there biosphere, where she has just given birth to a baby, which he didn't seem to notice until the baby was in the mothers arms. Then Fireworks erupt in the space around them ( which again is inaccurate as how would fireworks explode in a cyanide atmosphere ), and the film ends with a round of applause from the invisible aliens. The ending of the film was very poor it didn't send any messages about what the film represents, or how Vonnegut displays life in general. It ends with a pathetic light show on an alien planet. Vonnegut books closes with such an important statement represented by this seemingly meaningless bird, and the movie spins it into a mock romantic meaningless ending. It seems the film was trying to protect the audience from the meaningless of such a war that we were involved in, into a ‘everything'll be alright even of your captured in a small bowl like place, with no bathroom , controlled and watched by an invisible alien race, who have nothing better to do then watch humans breed, seems more like shop window in the red light district of Amsterdam, then an end to powerful book written by an acclaimed author.

The films interpretation had many kinks throughout however the last scene destroyed it for me and gave a lasting impression on my mind which destroyed the whole film for me, and for this i'm giving it a rating of 3.5 out of 10.

By Charnley Worth