Because "Redacted" concerns war-crimes committed by American soldiers in Iraq, the connection to De Palma's early war film, "Casualties of War", seems obvious.
But the stronger connection is to "Greetings" and "Hi Mom!", two then-counter-cultural political comedies more influenced by Godard than Hitchcock. Here De Palma dumps his elegant camera (used so effectively in "Carlito's Way" and "The Untouchables") and shoots "Redacted" as he did his early films, by flamboyantly mixing satire, documentary, voyeurism, journalism and improvisation.
But those who go to "Redacted" looking for the more elegant De Palma touches, won't be disappointed. In addition to the video screens that recall the director's obsession with split-screen, there are also several elaborate shots which echo earlier scenes in De Palma's filmography.
Thematically, the film is concerned about the falsity of images. The opening scene has one trooper taking a photograph of his comrades. They're leaning against a wall, moaning and grumpy, until he tells them to smile. When they smile, he snaps his camera and the photograph is recorded. History will record these man standing cheerfully against a wall, happy, proud to be fighting for freedom. But this snapshot creates a false impression. The recorded image is a lie.
At the end of the film, De Palma himself plays a character (off screen) who takes a photograph of one of the troops in a bar, back in the USA. After a painful and heart wrenching monologue, the trooper is asked to wipe his tears and smile for a homecoming photograph. Again the photo lies and creates the false, recorded impression of happiness.
The film's final image, which is the staged corpse of a raped girl, is a similar lie. But instead of something real photographed to create a false impression, it's something fake photographed to create the truth. This contrast has always interested De Palma; truth in fakery, lies masquerading as fact.
"Redacted" is also self-consciously a take on the platoon movie, with several Kubrick references (from "Barry Lyndon" to "Full Metal Jacket") on display. One glasses-wearing intellectual/moralist seems oddly similar to Kubrick's Private Joker, and one psychotic character conjures up Gomer Pyle. Then there's Kubrick's Animal Mother and a tongue in cheek homage to "Barry Lyndon" (zooms and music), used to emphasise military boredom, and the uselessness of (political) high art.
By using Kubrick's score, De Palma is essentially acknowledging that he's made this film already. He's expressing his annoyance at having to re-teach modern audiences, whilst simultaneously acknowledging that they won't learn.
The film is simple yet provocative and makes a great companion piece to Michael Winterbottom's "Road to Gunatanamo". Both pictures are shot with a grungy, pseudo-doc feel. De Palma's is far more frenetic, mixing medias and points of view, whilst Winterbottom goes for a voyeuristic, fly-on-the-wall approach. In terms of storytelling, Winterbottom's approach works best. We side with his victims and systematically follow them through their ordeal. De Palma's approach is one of frenetic copy and pasting, piecing together blogs and stitching together characters and sequences. It's more cinematic, more engaging and more visceral, but casual audiences will find this off-putting, not seeing the larger metaphorical messages being played out, and instead focusing wrongly on the "rape story".
Both "Guantanamo" and "Redacted" work best when taken together. They're unambiguous and completely anti-American (or anti George Bush). Winterbottom calls for the U.S. to stop policing the world and start policing itself, to stop detaining and torturing without evidence and to stop bulling without motive, whilst De Palma basically says, "get the f**k out of Iraq!".
It's a shallow viewpoint, but at the Q and A session De Palma basically admits this himself. He was given 5 million dollars and set out to hastily and cheaply film a simple statement. If the film doesn't go down as a great war movie, it will go down as a great reactionary piece of angry cinema.
Predictably, (or cowardly) the film has already been slapped with a "limited release" in the US, so it's likely only to be appreciated by the French, who've long had a huge De Palma fetish. End result, another powerful message movie and artistic statement rendered completely useless. But no one watched "Road to Guantanamo" anyway. So nothing's changed.
Still, at least the film can be appreciated by De Palma geeks as a nice return to the 60s. The style is engaging and you're always on the edge of your seat. The characters, in typical De Palma fashion, are cartoonish and larger than life. No realism here. De Palma's reoccurring theme of false images and manipulated photographic truth, also finds a stark poetry in "Redacted". During his Goddard phase, De Palma famously said "the camera lies at 24 frames per second" (in response to Goddard's claim that the camera records truth at 24 frames per second). None of his films portray this lie more clearly than "Redacted".
8/10- Entertaining, horrific, thought provoking, but a bit obvious and small scale. Works best as a companion piece to "Road to Guantanamo". It is important to look beyond the misguided "American soldier's are evil rapists" view of the film and see it for the larger metaphor the film represents, ie- "War rapes countries, but our image-lies tell us otherwise."
Worth one viewing.
But the stronger connection is to "Greetings" and "Hi Mom!", two then-counter-cultural political comedies more influenced by Godard than Hitchcock. Here De Palma dumps his elegant camera (used so effectively in "Carlito's Way" and "The Untouchables") and shoots "Redacted" as he did his early films, by flamboyantly mixing satire, documentary, voyeurism, journalism and improvisation.
But those who go to "Redacted" looking for the more elegant De Palma touches, won't be disappointed. In addition to the video screens that recall the director's obsession with split-screen, there are also several elaborate shots which echo earlier scenes in De Palma's filmography.
Thematically, the film is concerned about the falsity of images. The opening scene has one trooper taking a photograph of his comrades. They're leaning against a wall, moaning and grumpy, until he tells them to smile. When they smile, he snaps his camera and the photograph is recorded. History will record these man standing cheerfully against a wall, happy, proud to be fighting for freedom. But this snapshot creates a false impression. The recorded image is a lie.
At the end of the film, De Palma himself plays a character (off screen) who takes a photograph of one of the troops in a bar, back in the USA. After a painful and heart wrenching monologue, the trooper is asked to wipe his tears and smile for a homecoming photograph. Again the photo lies and creates the false, recorded impression of happiness.
The film's final image, which is the staged corpse of a raped girl, is a similar lie. But instead of something real photographed to create a false impression, it's something fake photographed to create the truth. This contrast has always interested De Palma; truth in fakery, lies masquerading as fact.
"Redacted" is also self-consciously a take on the platoon movie, with several Kubrick references (from "Barry Lyndon" to "Full Metal Jacket") on display. One glasses-wearing intellectual/moralist seems oddly similar to Kubrick's Private Joker, and one psychotic character conjures up Gomer Pyle. Then there's Kubrick's Animal Mother and a tongue in cheek homage to "Barry Lyndon" (zooms and music), used to emphasise military boredom, and the uselessness of (political) high art.
By using Kubrick's score, De Palma is essentially acknowledging that he's made this film already. He's expressing his annoyance at having to re-teach modern audiences, whilst simultaneously acknowledging that they won't learn.
The film is simple yet provocative and makes a great companion piece to Michael Winterbottom's "Road to Gunatanamo". Both pictures are shot with a grungy, pseudo-doc feel. De Palma's is far more frenetic, mixing medias and points of view, whilst Winterbottom goes for a voyeuristic, fly-on-the-wall approach. In terms of storytelling, Winterbottom's approach works best. We side with his victims and systematically follow them through their ordeal. De Palma's approach is one of frenetic copy and pasting, piecing together blogs and stitching together characters and sequences. It's more cinematic, more engaging and more visceral, but casual audiences will find this off-putting, not seeing the larger metaphorical messages being played out, and instead focusing wrongly on the "rape story".
Both "Guantanamo" and "Redacted" work best when taken together. They're unambiguous and completely anti-American (or anti George Bush). Winterbottom calls for the U.S. to stop policing the world and start policing itself, to stop detaining and torturing without evidence and to stop bulling without motive, whilst De Palma basically says, "get the f**k out of Iraq!".
It's a shallow viewpoint, but at the Q and A session De Palma basically admits this himself. He was given 5 million dollars and set out to hastily and cheaply film a simple statement. If the film doesn't go down as a great war movie, it will go down as a great reactionary piece of angry cinema.
Predictably, (or cowardly) the film has already been slapped with a "limited release" in the US, so it's likely only to be appreciated by the French, who've long had a huge De Palma fetish. End result, another powerful message movie and artistic statement rendered completely useless. But no one watched "Road to Guantanamo" anyway. So nothing's changed.
Still, at least the film can be appreciated by De Palma geeks as a nice return to the 60s. The style is engaging and you're always on the edge of your seat. The characters, in typical De Palma fashion, are cartoonish and larger than life. No realism here. De Palma's reoccurring theme of false images and manipulated photographic truth, also finds a stark poetry in "Redacted". During his Goddard phase, De Palma famously said "the camera lies at 24 frames per second" (in response to Goddard's claim that the camera records truth at 24 frames per second). None of his films portray this lie more clearly than "Redacted".
8/10- Entertaining, horrific, thought provoking, but a bit obvious and small scale. Works best as a companion piece to "Road to Guantanamo". It is important to look beyond the misguided "American soldier's are evil rapists" view of the film and see it for the larger metaphor the film represents, ie- "War rapes countries, but our image-lies tell us otherwise."
Worth one viewing.