“THE HIDDEN HAND”
An in-depth analysis of
Stanley Kubrick’s
FULL METAL JACKET
© by Rob Ager June 2008
17) Reading the signs
A significant aspect of FMJ, that I’ve only partially been able to decode, is it’s multi-lingual messages. These mostly come in the form of prominent background props, such as shop signs and billboards with Vietnamese, and occasionally French, text.
In the first Vietnam scene a large ad can be seen on the building behind the roundabout (where the camera thief and his buddy take off on a motorbike). It shows a smiling Vietnamese man’s head and below it is the word “hynos” written in a large green font. This smiling poster design was once an actual advertisement for a Vietnamese brand of toothpaste called Hynos.
I’m uncertain of why Kubrick chose this as part of FMJ’s set design, but it does appear to carry some significant meaning. In the Lusthog’s first battle scene an even bigger version of the Hynos face is pasted up on a large building, but without the Hynos brand name. After the battle, a camera view from the top of a rolling US tank shows the turret pointed directly at the giant poster. To my knowledge this smiling face doesn’t show up again, but the word “hynos” is seen in it’s usual italic green font as Animal Mother charges to rescue his injured buddies. And to the right of the Hynos sign is a poster of a young man who brushing his teeth.
The significance of Hynos as a toothpaste brand could be a reference to the statement made by Joker’s Chief Editor: “Joker we run two types of story here. Grunts who give half their pay to buy gooks toothbrushes and deodorants – the winning of hearts and minds, and combat action that results in a kill – winning the war”. Perhaps this is hinting that there are two narratives to the film or maybe Kubrick is trying to show us the hypocrisy of the Chief Editor’s comments. Or maybe the word “hynos” is somehow being used as a phonetic pun, as in “he knows”.
Other shop and street signs seem to be conceptually linked as well. The building that the Lusthog’s raid in their first battle features a large sign that reads “Leyna”. In the sniper battle they raid another building, which features the sign “MY TOAN”. And from the snipers viewpoint we see a bold blue sign that says “TAM PHUONG”.
There are several indicators that these signs have special meaning. When Animal peaks around a corner to try and spot the sniper, we get our first view of the MY TOAN sign. A continuity error then occurs. The muzzle flash from the snipers rifle is seen slightly after the bullet hits the concrete near Animals head. Of course, it should be the other way around – like when Cowboy gets shot – because light travels much faster than bullets.
As Cowboy dies in Joker’s arms, we see a brief cut to Animal firing through the magic missing wall at the sniper building. Instead of aiming for the windows he sprays wildly and blasts all the MY TOAN letters out of their positions, except for the letters Y and A. This is important because it reveals yet another continuity error – this time a severe one. When the Lusthogs run out in the open after throwing the smoke grenades we can see at the top right of the screen that the MY TOAN sign is undamaged. The letters have somehow moved back into place.
Now if we go back and look at the TAM PHUONG sign, as seen from the sniper position, we find that the letter G has been knocked slightly out of place and is suspended in a tilted position. This is completely at odds with the MY TOAN letters, which fell straight down when damaged. Again we could attribute this as an error, but it’s the same type of error as the shifting window frame, which moved itself to the ground after Cowboy was shot. From the snipers view an identical window frame could be seen hanging at a tilted angle on a different window face.
Notice also that the letter A in both the MY TOAN and TAM PHUONG sign seems to be slightly enlarged.
So let’s just recap a moment:
Now I’d be willing to bet money on it that Kubrick has encoded something in these signs. So the first thing to do is to get them translated, but immediately we encounter an obstacle. The Vietnamese alphabet makes use of Diacritics, which are small markings added to letters to alter their pronunciation. Below are some examples.
Ã Â Đ ệ ỉ Ê Ķ ʼn Ọ Ó ủ Ý
So if we try a straight translation with non-diacratic letters the results are mixed and misleading. Kubrick emphasizes the significance of diacritic markings when Animal Mother shoots the MY TOAN sign. All of the letters are destroyed except for the Y and the A because they are diacritic letters. Animal even shoots away the diacritic markings. It was also the markings that made the letter A’s in both signs look slightly larger than their neighboring letters.
Kubrick has left us with a diacritc word puzzle because he doesn’t offer any close up shots of the signs that allow us to specify exactly which markings are being used.
After a fair bit of messing around with online translation engines, I managed to translate these signs and the results in many ways matched up with themes already described in this analysis. In chapter nine “the illusive enemy” we explored how the Lusthogs are symbolically fighting their own shadows. The sign above the sniper position supports this interpretation.
MỸ TOÀN = ALL UNITED STATES
So are the bullet continuity errors (late muzzle flash and disappearing wall) symbolizing some sort of recognition that the enemy is the self … or that the enemy is covertly controlled by the US? Animal and Cowboy are the only Lusthogs who read the MY TOAN sign. Animal nearly dies when he sees it and Cowboy, after seeing it, gets straight onto the radio to speak to Murphy and then dies. Why did Cowboy radio in at this point anyway? We don’t get to hear what he asks Murphy because the shot cuts to the sniper viewpoint for a few seconds.
Perhaps the disappearing section of wall, through which the MY TOAN sign can be read as Cowboy radio's in to Murphy, is acting as a metaphoric speech bubble. Kubrick is said to have played the voice of Murphy in FMJ and so Cowboy’s communication with him seems to be what triggers his exit from the film narrative via the burning monolith. Did he ask for a translation of the MY TOAN sign?
An aditional observation here which may be unrelated is that as Cowboy turns away from the corner after seeing the MY TOAN sign, a slogan on his helmet reads "That'll be the day". The last word "day" is under a strap and so is barely visible.
The concept of a war covertly controlled on both sides by a hidden hand is present in another sign translation. The clenched fist posters seen in the sniper’s lair feature the words DOAN KET, which translates as follows.
ĐOÀN KÊT = TO UNITE OR COMBINE
Note that there are three flags shown on the sleeve of the hand. I have so far identified two of them – the left one is a US flag and the middle one is South Korean. Like in Vietnam, the Korean war was a north versus south affair in which the US intervened. Kubrick seems to be implying not just an engineered war, but a repetition of a previous one.
But let’s get back to the translations, in particular the one seen from the sniper’s viewpoint.
TÂM PHƯƠNG = CENTER DIRECTION
The implications of this sign are a little more illusive. A theme of changing directions has already been identified in chapter 15 of this review as relevant to the Kennedy assassination and for some strange reason Doc Jay is shown dragging Eightball in the wrong direction - away from the Lusthogs and further into the sniper's open view.
According to www.vdict.com, TÂM also translates as:
MAN'S GOOD HEART MIND CENTER, HEART
Maybe Kubrick is commenting on the so-called “winning of hearts and minds” as the “killing of hearts and minds”, since Cowboy is shot through the chest directly beneath this sign. Or perhaps it is part of the Kennedy assassination references – a “different” direction of bullet impact. Cowboy also told his squad before sending Eightball to be picked off by the sniper: “Ok, we’re changing directions. We’re going over that way”. Perhaps another indicator of differing bullet directions.
The word Phuong also means Phoenix, which is an indestructible mythical bird reborn from its own ashes. What relevance this would bare on the subliminal themes of FMJ I can't say, but the song Bird is the Word from the film's soundtrack, could be a hint that it does have meaning.
Moving on, the word Leyna (seen at the top of the building raided in the first Lusthog action scene) seems to have no meaning at all in Vietnamese. It is actually a girl’s name, which in Russian means “bright and shining light”. It is derived from the Greek word “Lina”, which simply means “Light”. The script includes a bizarre piece of dialogue from Hartman that could be related to this: "Do you see the light? The white light? The great white light? The guiding light? Do you have the vision?"
The TAM PHUONG sign also doubles up as a name. PHUONG is a Vietnamese girl’s name that means “phoenix” or “destiny”. Another Vietnam based book / film called The Quiet American featured a central character named Phuong. That story has several other similarities to FMJ. One of it’s other three central characters is named Pyle. A lesser character is called Murphy, just like Cowboy’s unseen commanding officer who he radio’s in to. However, having not read or seen The Quiet American I’m unable to elaborate on whether Kubrick was deliberately referencing it.
The sign above the cinema entrance during Joker and Doc Jay’s interviews, MAU GIANG or MAD GIANG, is likely a reference to the John Wayne western film Red River, but the translation is slightly odd.
MấU GIANG = RIVER BLOOD
Combined with the Cowboys and Indians theme, this may be another reference to the Native American Genocide themes of Kubrick’s horror classic The Shining, in which a river of blood was seen flowing through a hotel corridor. During Joker’s interview, with a cardboard Indian over his shoulder, he says: “I wanted to meet stimulating people of an ancient culture and kill them”. This is more than likely a Native American genocide reference. Thanks to Sam Harnish for the latter observation.
Several other Vietnamese signs make multiple appearances, but seem to have no other significant meaning. COTAB is a brand of Vietnamese cigarette. It appears when Crazy Earl shoots two NVA and when Animal takes the prostitute into the cinema. The phrase QUOC TE is seen left screen when the camera thieves take off on a motorbike, and when Animal charges to save his wounded buddies. With diacritics it translates as follows.
QUốC Tế = INTERNATIONAL
Also seen in the same two scenes is a beer advert with the words CON O DEN. The repetition of these signs may be part of Kubrick’s narrative recurrence technique. In this case a collection of street signs are present in the first prostitute scene and are repeated when the Lusthogs are ambushed by a sniper - it could simply be a confirmation that the Sniper represents a prostitute.
I’ve gone through most of the other shop and billboard signs in FMJ and translated them into English. Only one of them appeared to bare reference to a subliminal narrative … but it was the most surprising translation of them all.
In the lead up to Crazy Earl’s death from a booby trapped toy, Joker strolls past a concrete structure which features a shell oil logo followed by the sentence: TIEP TUC PHUNG SU QUY NGAI.
The shell logo is significant because it’s presence was explicitly commented on by Rafterman in the script. In the sentence Kubrick has included the correct diacritic markings, which makes the translation a little easier through an online translation engine.
Roughly translated as a full sentence this would read something like:
TIếP TụC PHụNG Sự QUỷ NGÀI =
TO CONTINUOUSLY SERVE THE DEVIL, YOUR EXCELLENCY
Can this be right? Is Kubrick veering off into occultist territory like he did in Eyes Wide Shut? More than likely he is. In chapter 13) Hell On Earth we identified that in the sniper hunt the Lusthogs left the conventional narrative and traveled to a burning hell scape. This was loosely referred to by various characters as “a world of shit”. In the sniper lair we also identified an upside down five pointed star on a flag with a fire burning underneath, plus swastika designs in the railings and circular wall plaques. I'm not sure what the point is, but hellish symbolism certainly has a role in FMJ.
As a final note for this chapter I’d like to add that my translations have been made using online Vietnamese-to-English dictionaries. So they may be innaccurate in places.