In the process of shaving, a young man cuts himself. A lot.
This short film is a metaphor for the Vietnam War. A man walks into a meticulously clean and sterile bathroom, concentrating on the polished porcelain and shiny metal motif. He then proceeds to shave. When his face is clean, however, he only continues to shave until he pierces through his skin. Blood covers him and falls around him, the red contrasting the perfect spotlessness of the bathroom.—Joseph D. Guernsey
Peering over the shoulder of a young man going about the mundane job of shaving his face, Martin Scorsese focuses on a pristine white bathroom. Then, in this Vietnam War allegory, the bathroom soon becomes a site of crimson-stained shaving carnage, as the self-destructive man engages in a bloody act of self-mutilation.—Nick Riganas