I've just seen this movie in the Dublin Theatre Festival - I was somewhat surprised to see that there were lots of seats available (most of the huge range of movies have been booked out) - I guess even in a 'neutral' country people have just had enough of the war and have no stomach for fictionalizations.
Nick Broomfield has tried to do a lot with this movie - he has tried to show all three sides of a conflict (the two combatants and the civilians caught in between them) and given them equal time and equal empathy. He has tried to mix documentary and fiction - always a very dubious project. While in many respects its a tough and worthy movie, I do feel it has fallen short of its ambitions.
He carefully builds up his characters - the ordinary Iraqis going about their business, trying to live normal lives. The young Marines are shown most vividly - young men hyped up on testosterone and heavy metal (there is a great soundtrack from Ministry). And the Insurgents - a mix of clueless young men, Islamic nuts and despairing ex soldiers. The latter is the weakest part of it - the depiction of the insurgents is poorly done, with actors speaking lines out of an 'idiots guide to Jahid'. Only one of the insurgents is an interesting individual - the older man, an ex soldier apparently driven by despair rather than hatred - I would have liked to see more of this character.
The build up to the (apparently) true incident, when marines massacred two families in retaliation for a successful IED attack is tense, and the actual incident is realistic - it is particularly good at depicting how men who don't see themselves as evil can carry out a massacre. Broomfield clearly blames a combination of the training and a refusal to see the locals as humans as well as mendacious senior officers. But I have to confess to some misgivings about the depiction - it aims for reality, but some parts just lack credibility - *spoiler alert* For example, would experienced ambushers chose a random section of roadway without bothering to work out where their hiding place would be first? Would they really carry guns with them - surely they would just try to blend in with the locals by dressing normally? Its little things like this that make me feel that its not as honest in its attempt at a documentary like seriousness as it likes to think it is.
While its a worthy movie, and its hard to dispute that the attempt to show even handedness to all sides deserves acknowledgment, I found the narrative quite clumsy and the ending was poorly judged. I think this movie would have been better as a straightforward documentary, or a piece of 'pure' fiction. The deepest truths about war are often told by more abstract fictional stories (such as Apocalypse Now or my personal favorite, the Japanese movie Red Angel), than attempts to reproduce actual events. It doesn't help that the story is hamstrung by a very didactic approach (yes, we know war is evil and Bush is a hypocrite, we don't need to be told over and over again) and only an average script. But the quality of the middle section does make it worthwhile viewing.
Nick Broomfield has tried to do a lot with this movie - he has tried to show all three sides of a conflict (the two combatants and the civilians caught in between them) and given them equal time and equal empathy. He has tried to mix documentary and fiction - always a very dubious project. While in many respects its a tough and worthy movie, I do feel it has fallen short of its ambitions.
He carefully builds up his characters - the ordinary Iraqis going about their business, trying to live normal lives. The young Marines are shown most vividly - young men hyped up on testosterone and heavy metal (there is a great soundtrack from Ministry). And the Insurgents - a mix of clueless young men, Islamic nuts and despairing ex soldiers. The latter is the weakest part of it - the depiction of the insurgents is poorly done, with actors speaking lines out of an 'idiots guide to Jahid'. Only one of the insurgents is an interesting individual - the older man, an ex soldier apparently driven by despair rather than hatred - I would have liked to see more of this character.
The build up to the (apparently) true incident, when marines massacred two families in retaliation for a successful IED attack is tense, and the actual incident is realistic - it is particularly good at depicting how men who don't see themselves as evil can carry out a massacre. Broomfield clearly blames a combination of the training and a refusal to see the locals as humans as well as mendacious senior officers. But I have to confess to some misgivings about the depiction - it aims for reality, but some parts just lack credibility - *spoiler alert* For example, would experienced ambushers chose a random section of roadway without bothering to work out where their hiding place would be first? Would they really carry guns with them - surely they would just try to blend in with the locals by dressing normally? Its little things like this that make me feel that its not as honest in its attempt at a documentary like seriousness as it likes to think it is.
While its a worthy movie, and its hard to dispute that the attempt to show even handedness to all sides deserves acknowledgment, I found the narrative quite clumsy and the ending was poorly judged. I think this movie would have been better as a straightforward documentary, or a piece of 'pure' fiction. The deepest truths about war are often told by more abstract fictional stories (such as Apocalypse Now or my personal favorite, the Japanese movie Red Angel), than attempts to reproduce actual events. It doesn't help that the story is hamstrung by a very didactic approach (yes, we know war is evil and Bush is a hypocrite, we don't need to be told over and over again) and only an average script. But the quality of the middle section does make it worthwhile viewing.