Sebastian Junger (left) and
Tim Hetherington
RESTREPO A-
USA (94 mi) 2010 d: Tim Hetherington
and Sebastian Junger
Where the road ends is
where the Taliban begins. —Captain Dan Kearney
This appears to be a film that picks up right where The
Hurt Locker (2008), a work of fiction, left off, opening with giggly and
extremely confident soldiers ready for combat on a flight over into Eastern
Afghanistan bordering Pakistan, which may as well be another world altogether,
as their assignment is into a base camp in the Korengal Valley, which is
surrounded on all sides by higher mountains, making them easy targets, where
one of them says it’s like “sitting ducks.”
This one region is responsible for 70% of all the ammunition ordinance
used in the entire Afghan war, so soldiers here get their money’s worth. As anticipation sets in, soldiers express
their thoughts directly to the handheld cameras of photojournalist Tim
Hetherington and writer Sebastian Junger who were embedded with the troops in a
15-month deployment by Battle Company’s Second Platoon of the 173rd Airborne
Brigade beginning in 2007, which is pushed to the limit of a safety zone, as
everything on the other side for as far as you can see is unchartered, enemy
territory. This immediately brings to
mind Valerio Zurlini’s film THE DESERT OF THE TARTARS (1976) about the
relentless psychological torment from an outpost on the edge of nowhere where
an isolated platoon sits awaiting the threat of attack from an unseen
enemy. But here the compound itself is already
under relentless attack, as from the outset, they have to face the reality of 6
to 8 firefights per day, with bullets raining down on them potentially from all
sides, where one soldier on an adrenaline high screams out that he loves to get
shot at, that it’s “better than crack.” One
of the eerie aspects of war is that you rarely if ever see the face of the
enemy, and only on rare occurrences are you aware of what you hit. Most often you’re firing in the direction of
incoming rounds hoping to put a quick stop to the threat. Within the opening minutes of the film,
soldiers are hit and killed. We don’t
see it, but we hear the exasperated reaction of their fellow troops who are
devastated by the loss. To a man, their
thoughts are that they will most likely never get out of there alive, that this
is the end of the line for them.
Under cover of darkness, they send a helicopter into one of
the high grounds that has been causing the most damage, where a small group of
soldiers dig in a temporary fortification, which is followed by a hail of
gunfire, but through persistence and hard work they hold their position, eventually
adding more provisions, but never more than about 15 men who remain in a
precarious position, as it is too far away from the compound to receive any
immediate assistance. They name this new
outpost after their fallen soldier, Camp Restrepo. Throughout the film, there are recollections
of this man, including a guitar player who recalls how uncannily talented a
player he was, as all apparently identified with him in a very short period of
time. The film does an excellent job
identifying with the soldiers, showing them in close quarters, continually
exposed to the enemy, where their skills must be extraordinary just to survive. What’s remarkable about this film is there is
no plot, no story, no spin doctoring, and no commentary to describe the
action. What we see onscreen is the
action, where soldiers know at any moment that they could be killed, so their
focus level is indescribable. Despite
the raised intensity and unvarnished verité skill of the filmmakers, who themselves
do not hesitate to volunteer for the most dangerous missions, it’s hard to
grasp just what the purpose of these missions are. So when gunshots are heard or a cloud of
smoke is seen, without ever seeing the enemy, it’s frustratingly difficult to
know just what’s happening. This
confusion leads to an exasperated audience, as while the footage is authentic
as hell, where the camera instantaneously loses its direction from an incoming
round, pointing skyward to the heavens as the operator runs behind a vehicle or
a protective wall, and where the instinct to protect oneself comes through loud
and clear, we never really understand what they ever intended to accomplish in
the first place. Using soldiers as
guinea pigs, drawing the enemy to this spot and then going toe to toe with
them, engaging in firefights across the border at whoever fires upon them seems
like a wildly optimistic military plan.
The soldiers themselves are under no illusions, so the adrenaline to
kill as many of “the bad guys” as possible is their sole game plan, as there’s
too few of them and they’re not in a position to take the battle to the enemy,
as Pakistan, like Cambodia during the Vietnam War, is supposedly off limits
except for special forces.
In a peace building gesture, there are weekly meetings
called shuras between the local Afghani village elders and the military brass,
where the officers attempt to persuade the elders to cooperate by pointing out
the enemy. In return, American military
personnel are building roads that never existed before and are improving the
quality of life in the region, including hospitals and needed jobs where none
existed. But their attempts to establish
credibility fails to make a dent with the centuries-old liaisons that already exist
in the region, knowing the elders will live there permanently while the
Americans are mere visitors.
Nonetheless, these attempts sound shallow and a bit ridiculous, as the
elders could care less, knowing to do what the Americans ask would cost them
their lives. They’re more interested in
receiving American dollars, which are off the bargaining table. Camp Restrepo seems to have turned the tide
somewhat, as its elevated vantage point has minimized the damage of incoming
fire, which leads to Operation Rock Avalanche, a more
adventurous and decidedly more dangerous mission, where they are dropped directly
into enemy territory in an attempt to take the battle directly to the enemy,
rooting out safe spots and discovering ammunition storage sites. But as soon as they engage in battle, which
is described by the soldiers after they have safely returned, only innocent
civilians, including small children, are caught in the line of fire. Even as the military is approaching a housing
compound, there is no attempt to remove the civilians, so their venture
backfires, as Americans will forever be blamed for their losses. Even worse, one is air-lifted out of there
seriously wounded while they lose another one of the most battle hardened
soldiers, the kind of guy they all look up to, which has tragic and demoralizing
consequences. There is a shudder of
emotion as they describe this moment, the most haunting in the film, as never
were they more stripped bare and vulnerable than at that moment, which exposes
the fear and absolute dread of battle.
One medic describes how he can never sleep anymore, even with sleeping
pills, as he dreads the recurring nightmares that await him, reminding him of
what he’d seen. This is truly another BURDEN
OF DREAMS (1982), where the horror of this moment is followed by a quick cut to
a soldier dance-off, where the sensuous techno trash dance music of “Touch Me
(I Want To Feel Your Body),” Samantha Fox Touch Me I Want
To Feel Your Body - YouTube (3:42), comes earth-shakingly alive under these
harrowing circumstances, where it becomes impossible to understand how any of
them could ever live in the real world again after this experience, suggesting
the film, through its haunting, fragmented images, successfully captures the
horror of war, even as it insanely proves how futile even the best efforts and
intentions become.
Postscript
Tim
Hetherington obituary | Media | The Guardian James Brabazon from The Guardian, April 21, 2011
Photojournalist and co-director Tim Hetherington, a British
national, was killed at the age of 41 on April 20, 2011 after being hit by
flying shrapnel from Gaddafi troops in Misrata, Libya, where he bled to death
on the way to the hospital, dying just minutes away. Named world press photographer of the year
four times and an Oscar nominee, Hetherington was one of the most respected
members of his profession. In his relentless
pursuit of capturing some of the most disturbing events of the past decade,
Hetherington was covering the Libyan rebels, where he had just captured a
series of images where over 60 people, including 85 civilians, were reported
killed, with thousands more injured since the city came under siege seven weeks
earlier. Hetherington often placed
himself in some of the world’s most dangerous battle zones, where he was caught
in a mortar attack while returning from a bitterly-contested thoroughfare on
the town’s dangerous Tripoli Highway.
Also killed at the scene was American journalist Chris Hondros.
