Covering the war in Afghanistan from the frontlines, Restrepo (2010) is an eye-opening piece of journalism that makes CNN’s Persian Gulf coverage look like a puff piece. Directors Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger deliver verite naturalism as they embed with the US Army for fifteen months in the most dangerous region of Afghanistan, the Korengal valley. The film’s intimate perspective compensates for a lack of omniscience with an observant eyes-on-the-ground approach similar to that of Generation Kill. The major divergence, though, is in the acknowledgment, or glaring lack thereof in the case of Restrepo, of the reporters. They ask questions on a couple occasions, and the entire campaign is interspersed with later confessional sequences in typical doc style, but you wonder why nobody’s rushing to cover the directors during any of the combat they wind up in.
Still, it’s hard to focus on the crew when you’re in the midst of a real-life battle between US Army soldiers and invisible Taliban insurgents. The power of the film’s battlefield access cannot be overstated. No news report or fiction film comes as close to conveying what fighting in Afghanistan is really like, and the talking heads (“felt like fish in a barrel,” “ my mindset was like ‘I’m gonna die here’”) only augment the horror. You’re on edge hiking through the forests. You feel betrayed when you hear reports that the recurring valley elders have called for jihad. You’re dumbstruck at the chaos of the two major skirmishes, the dig-shoot-dig fortification of a new base (the titular O.P. Restrepo) and the so-bad-they-warn-us Operation Rock Avalanche. You’re exhausted when you read that ending title card, the filmmakers’ final, ironic killshot.
Restrepo isn’t nearly as depressing as it sounds, though, precisely because it doesn’t have much perspective beyond that of its creative, energetic, young soldiers. The greatest scene in the film is a humorous walkie-talkie conversation so absurdly detailed and expertly timed that no screenwriter could have concocted it. Through their talking heads and spontaneous dance parties and artistic outlets we come to know the individual soldiers, especially platoon leader Capt. Kearney, who desperately clings to the notion that OP Restrepo is a success. It’s more than a strategic victory and more than a memorial for the soldier, glimpsed in poetic low-angle flashback, it’s named after. It’s a symbol that their campaign, however costly, produced some concrete result.
Restrepo the film is more opaque, but the film’s multivalent attack crystallizes in the weekly meetings with the valley elders. These sequences hearten the less gung ho among us, they provide an interesting if limited anthropological insight, especially the meeting about the aptly named Cow Incident, and they demonstrate the documentary’s limitations as the weekly impasse is resolved without explanation. But more than any other scene, these episodes reveal both the film’s worldview and its cunning. As the appearance of diplomacy occurs on hardly neutral ground, the camera silently, selectively clarifies that each side talks past the other and walks away feeling accomplished. It’s the illusion of progress, but next week you’re back where you started. Welcome to Afghanistan.
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Brandon Nowalk writes about film and television for the Maroon Weekly in College Station, TX and at his blog But What She Said. His favorite films beyond the usual suspects include Henry King’s The Gunfighter, Alain Resnais’ Last Year at Marienbad, Orson Welles’ The Trial, Jan Nemec’s Diamonds of the Night, and David Lynch’s Inland Empire.
I saw this movie at Sundance this past year and highly recommend it. The film is as close to being in an outfit stationed in Afghanistan as you can get without being shot at. Hard to believe the filmmakers were able to make the film without getting injured or killed themselves. Wouldn’t be shocked to see this film making the Oscar short list.
Can’t wait to see it!