Review Of The Film Slaughtehouse Five
My reaction to the first half of the film was “Oh this is going to be an old timing movie about a writer” but my analysis was somewhat right. When Billy was typing I assumed he was writing a story about times in his life like an autobiographical feel, but also because of the different scenes displayed. Then my hypothesis was on the right track but maybe Billy was writing his own story but with writing it was stories inside of stories that all connected in some sort.
The story is unfolding as the old Billy types the story, I’m guessing when a piece of the story connects to the other point in his life he “time trips”. I used the context clues from the film conveyed that “time trips” are basically time traveling to different memories of the past. The film displayed about 5 or 6 aspects of Billy’s “time trips” the war, young, sexual, pet owner, husband and nonchalant Billy. The different aspects of the “time travels” seemed as though he has the war side effect of “PTSD”. Even though we are not into deep into the movie, yet Billy passes out or has some type of relapse which he shocks back into different parts of the past. Also, the wife gets bigger and bigger when he is playing more attention to the pet dog. Which instead of encouraging his wife to lose the weight she wants to lose he helps the dog become more of a house dog. I also think that there is a significance of the different people like Americans, Russians, and others are not getting along like Paul Lazzaro. Why is he so aggressive towards everyone and the word revenge always the starting factor of his conversations? The rich Billy seems as though he isn’t really a family man but just there along for the ride. He also doesn’t seem attracted to his wife because he either dreams about another lady or it’s his wife younger. He even showed distance at the little party not wanting to do the family thing not telling a story to his family and friends.
You can really convey something in the war bad happen because he has the symptoms so far of PTSD, but his wife explains his friend died in the war. Could that experience of his friend’s death be the cause of the disease? Was it the job Billy elected his friend for the reason he died in Dresden?
