The message of the film that can be deducted from the episode title is one that portrays select men facing a huge evil in society, fighting roaches. The opening scene gives the message of a soldier wishing for a better future than his present. Snipe fantasizes about his sweet memories with his wife though now faced with a vicious horror of mutant human creatures. The message in the ending scene is that nothing was real in all the battles and that the mass implants were used only to show the soldiers what their superiors wanted and to inhibit empathy.
There was the use of the Danish language by the villagers in the episode men against fire. The villagers use their local mother tongue to ask for help from the soldiers who use translators. The episode “Men against fire” uses the camera in a very significant way so as to bring a horror effect on the viewer. The episode makes use of close-ups to show the fantasies the soldiers have especially in the opening scene. The use of medium shots was effective in showing the roaches as it focused on their upper body to emphasize their evil form. The color in this episode was used differently in the episodes where the colors in the sexual dreams of the soldiers were bright and attractive while the colors used during the battle with the roaches were dull colors to show bad and evil. The lights used in this episode were mostly dull during the soldiers’ mission but the episode lightened up during the soldiers’ dreams and fantasies. The episode “Men against fire” uses the song ‘Anyone who knows what love is (will understand)’ to show how the soldiers long for the sexual fantasies that are shown to them as a reward of a successful day’s work.
The film made me feel a horror that I had not felt in the previous episodes of the Black Mirror. The film made me feel worried that we are heading to a future with technology advancements that will help destroy the human race. The use of color in the episode ‘Men against fire’ displays an evil mood in the episode. The dull color has nothing enticing and just creates a feeling of insecurity and fear. The music makes me feel that love has been abused in this episode because I can’t really see the love in killing innocent human beings nor in the dreams the soldiers are compensated with. The use of characters in this episode makes me uneasy in that there is fake friendliness as the soldiers are killing innocent human beings (roaches) to protect the villagers. The setting of this episode is in a village that is attacked by human mutants who have frightened the villagers. This form of setting frightens me to the core. Use of lighting in the episode ‘Men against fire’ portrays evil all throughout the episode except for parts where the soldiers have fantasies. This makes me very uncomfortable throughout the episode as in dull lighting one knows something bad is to come out of it for sure.
