Hurt Locker, straight up racist movie

[Mr. Tea]

someone confirmed my suspicions by reporting that it does end up glorifying that which it allegedly criticizes...

I never thought it did this - in fact the only way I think someone could think this is just by a total failure to appreciate satire. It takes the piss out of both sides - of course, whether it mocks one side harder than it mocks the other could be debated ad nauseam - but it's not supportive of gung-ho US chauvinism on anything but the most superficial and obviously ironic level.

More to the point, it's funny as hell.

 

[scottdisco]

On Hamas Al-Aqsa TV, Nahoul the Bee Replaces Farfour the Mickey-Mouse Character, Vows to Continue Farfour's Path of Martyrdom, Jihad

i love my comedy

 

[scottdisco]

tb a bit more serious for a mo, and keep it more on-topic, something Gumdrops asked interested me. i don't know the answer to 'are there any films from an Iraqi or Afghan pov re the WoT' (what is drama like on TV in these countries? Padraig or Soof or Pstyle posted some things on the Iraq thread IIRC), but Michael Winterbottom is, at least, one of the few western directors who has made some presumably thoughtful films on these sorts of things. (tbc, i haven't seen any of the below, so i could be chatting out of my ass when i say the below seem to look fairly OK, but at least he's tackling important subjects.)

and the below is about refugees, but they are Afghan, so...

who's seen Generation Kill?
i saw one ep, which was good. really captures, i thought. there was an instance when a young girl was killed, and the American troops watched as her father carried her away, which was completely devastating. i can't speak for the rest of the show, but at least in that moment it was clear the makers were internationalist in their humanity, empathy and grief.

i saw a BBC report once covering Serbian TV doing a TVM about the battle of Kosovo. spraying dry ice around a field as extras advanced on unseen positions. i'd be well interested to see the end result of that...

 

[gumdrops]

road to guantanamo is the one that was on ch4 isnt it? thats worth seeing but it can be a bit ambiguous.

not seen the others but im gonnoa add them to my lovefilm list. though i cant imagine the one witn angelina in is much cop.

not about iraq or afghanistan but if anyone wants to see a film about suicide bombers in palestine, then paradise now is a good one.

 

[scottdisco]

yeah that movie you mention got a lot of press, might have to check it out, nice one.

i like Winterbottom's Welcome to Sarajevo incidentally.

The Terrorist is a 1999 film about the original suicide bombers, as it were: IIRC it doesn't explicitly say the young woman of the title is a Tiger, but the film's in Tamil, set in a patently south Asian warzone, etc etc, so it's fairly obvious. saw it once when it came out, can't honestly remember if i'd recommend it! but it certainly struck me. she doesn't give too much away IIRC, so if you're looking for some psychological portrait maybe not, but i dunno man, i was looking it up the other day and came across some (IMO) frankly pretentious blowhard who was putting the boot into it because it was a fairly superficial film he thought, and, well, OK, it's not a book is it, but the fact i am recalling it from a over a decade ago (trust me, my memory is shocking), might say something, FWIW.

(or you may think it's a horseshit film )

incidentally, i just skimread this piece - concerning a more recent film about the LTTE, My Daughter The Terrorist, which the author contrasts w a film about IDF women soldiers, whilst searching for The Terrorist.
interesting audience responses re the Israeli film - To See If I Am Smiling (not seen it, me) - here, too.

i'd imagine Jolie gives a good performance in that film, actually, although, i ain't seen it, no.

me and mistersloane been going on about Johnny Mad Dog from last year or so, if you want contemporary war films. again, doesn't explicitly state where it's set as such IIRC, in the script, but there are many nods to Liberia, and in one scene a Liberian flag is clearly visible if i recall.
amazing film.

FWIW, i ain't seen THL, but i like what Padraig and Pstyle been saying about it, it sounds like it does a pretty good job. of course, the thrust of the criticisms are valid i'm sure about ignoring the Iraqi other, to a large extent, but, hey, i thought Black Hawk Down was pretty good, and whilst it would have been made better, perhaps, if we could have got a Somali pov in - and i don't want to sound facetious here but - that's why i read Justice for Africa and African Rights/HRW reports, you know? (scottdisco in states obvious middle-ground position shocker!)
if someone says OK, fair enough, but you're already lowering expectations w that sort of attitude, etc, fair cop, but, it is what it is.

 

[scottdisco]

also can i add that NYT piece that Pstyle posted (nice one) about Bigelow's struggles to get it made was a really great article, cheers. and out to Padraig on it, once again, i remember you yammering on it on your blog and i was struck back then

 

[vimothy]

Waltz with Bashir is good.

 

[mrfaucet]

who's seen Generation Kill?
i saw one ep, which was good. really captures, i thought. there was an instance when a young girl was killed, and the American troops watched as her father carried her away, which was completely devastating. i can't speak for the rest of the show, but at least in that moment it was clear the makers were internationalist in their humanity, empathy and grief.

I really rate Generation Kill. It covers a lot of different aspects to the soldiers' experience and doesn't really neatly dovetail with any particular ideological viewpoint i.e. pro or anti war. For instance, you clearly see the soldiers struggling with the rules of engagement - 'don't shoot civillians but if you do then we'll back you' - and the difficulties they have carrying out a mission they weren't trained to do, but then you also see them describing the notion of dropping the atom bomb on Hiroshima as the coolest thing ever. Also gives you an indication of why there were such difficulties rebuilding/stabilising Iraq after the invasion. I haven't seen any mention of the speed at which the invasion was carried out come up in the Chilcot inquiry. Anyone know if it has been mentioned as part of the reason it was so difficult to rebuild the country? It's a recurring theme in Generation Kill.

 

[vimothy]

I haven't seen any mention of the speed at which the invasion was carried out come up in the Chilcot inquiry. Anyone know if it has been mentioned as part of the reason it was so difficult to rebuild the country? It's a recurring theme in Generation Kill.

I don't think you can say that the speed of the invasion determined the length of the occupation; rather, the speed of the invasion and the length of the occupation are both symptomatic of US strategy going in.

 

[mrfaucet]

Well it seems that there was this intent to move through the country and take Baghdad as soon as possible and this had the implication that the towns and cities that had already been captured were in fact left with no military presence. As I say, this is a recurring theme in Generation Kill - they race from one town to the next taking out the Ba'ath party before moving on and essentially leaving the town in destruction/chaos. Obviously the reasons for Iraq turning out as it did/has are complex and can't be explained by one thing alone, but this would seem to be part of any explanation.

 

[vimothy]

So American strategic calculus vis-a-vis Iraq can be defined by:

1, "Shock and awe" at operational level
2, Disinterest in "Phase IV" operations: "we don't do nation building", etc

Tempo is a function of strategy, not the other way round.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

of course, the thrust of the criticisms are valid i'm sure about ignoring the Iraqi other, to a large extent, but, hey, i thought Black Hawk Down was pretty good, and whilst it would have been made better, perhaps, if we could have got a Somali pov

no one would deny it, including me. tho the THL isn't anywhere near as bad as Black Hawk Down in that regard. The Somalis are pretty much just an angry mob of black faces throughout the latter film, large of parts of which look like a video game. THL doesn't make a great effort to engage Iraqis, but it does portray them as individuals, instead of merely targets (excluding the two firefight scenes, obviously). I thought it treated Iraqis, or attempted, w/a perspective American soldiers ca. 2004 would've; suspicious, somewhere between not quite hostile and tentatively friendly, sometimes condescending, above all exasperated with their own situation. b/c, again - sorry to keep repeating myself - it was a film about American soldiers.

FWIW, the filmmakers hired Iraqi expatriates living in Jordan - where THL was filmed - to play the parts of Iraqis. tho someone will probably find some reason why that's merely another insult to Iraqis.

I don't think you can say that the speed of the invasion determined the length of the occupation; rather, the speed of the invasion and the length of the occupation are both symptomatic of US strategy going in.

well they're both kinda true. there was bad strategy going in, which directly contributed to the length of the occupation. the US military wasn't set up to do an occupation. at all; for a long while there simply weren't enough bodies on the ground to do the job ("just enough troops to lose"), a major reason why things fell apart. Tommy Franks' idiocy (there's really no other word for it) & Donald Rumsfeld's cocktail of incompetence & overarching hubris - all that shock & awe, rapid dominance stuff. also a wild overestimation of what air strikes alone can do, esp. bitter b/c the same exact thing happened in Vietnam, somehow it's a lesson that never seems to stick with Americans.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

Obviously the reasons for Iraq turning out as it did/has are complex and can't be explained by one thing alone, but this would seem to be part of any explanation.

no, it's a major part. Vim beat me to it, but you're just flipping the strategy & the tactics around. the latter follow from the former, which itself follows from policy. so really there was policy failure (on numerous levels) compounded by bad military strategy, resulting in a square peg into round hole approach. some of the other reasons are linked to that as well. rapid, comprehensive de-Baathification (as opposed to just removing the top/truly culpable people) really screwed infrastructure up, rebuilding efforts, w/out any kind of central purpose or plan, were badly mismanaged, etc.

 

[vimothy]

^^ Well, yes. But in terms of causality, tempo was determined by strategy (such as it was). US forces didn't leave troops around to hold and stabilise ultimately because they decided that they didn't want to do that.

And of course, the unit in GK were light inf/Recon Marines at the very tip of the tooth.

EDIT: This post replies to padraig at 03:06 PM

EDIT EDIT: Think we're basically in agreement here padraig

 

[Gavin]

Watched this last night. Agree that it's one-dimensional, cliche-ridden, and generally uninteresting. Somewhat shocked that a pro-war film (pro-Iraq War at that!) would win Best Picture in 2009 -- isn't the Academy full of hippies?

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

please explain - not just Gavin, this is an open invitation to anyone who thinks so - how THL is pro-war & pro-Iraq War. specifically I mean, as opposed to simply declaring that it is or making vague allusions. I don't think anyone will have a good explantion, mainly because isn't a pro-war movie (at least not any more than Full Metal Jacket or Cross of Iron is a pro-war movie). people seem to be confusing "pro-war" with "not explicitly anti-war", i.e, not polemically anti-war enough for your tastes.

 

[Gavin]

people seem to be confusing "pro-war" with "not explicitly anti-war", i.e, not polemically anti-war enough for your tastes.

And you seem to confuse what people actually say with what you think they seem to say. Discussion is much more satisfying when people engage with what's said rather than what a Marxist strawmn or whatever would say. But I appreciate you pre-empting any potential critique of casting Jordanians as Iraqis, a point no one brought up. One does wonder, though, with the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi refugees in Jordan, why weren't they in the movie? Did they refuse? Did they have a choice?

On to my acceptance of your gracious invitation.

The Hurt Locker presents a pretty typical American hero: the reluctant one. He's unpretentious, highly skilled, unwaveringly moral but not a goody-two-shoes, and best of all, a workaholic. A QUIET workaholic. We are supposed to admire this man. Sure, he leaves his family behind, but this is merely evidence of THL's authentic grittiness -- any sitcom or male stand-up will tell you that each man's family is secretly his prison.

I think the utter lack of moral complexity in the film is what struck me initially -- there's no question as to whether James makes the right decision in every situation, even if he spices it up with some foolhardy machismo. Indeed, the soldier that hesitates to shoot Arabs costs the life of another soldier; James grins when this soldier "mans up" and "takes the shot" in a later scene. Compare this to the final scene in Full Metal Jacket and maybe you'll see why I think your linking of the two is ludicrous. FMJ to me is pretty clearly anti-war, really anti-military, though not polemical (Hollywood polemics of any leaning tend towards the execrable).

Add to that the way all the action scenes are shot as kewl videogame type simulations (i.e., fun), the aforementioned critiques of Orientalized Arab characters, the wealth of cliched characters (soft liberal college boy chaplain [blown up for being nice to Arabs], young guy who cracks under pressure, evil British capitalists, etc.), and you have a movie that is designed NOT to make you think. You are supposed to watch, enjoy, partake in some visceral thrill, ironize, rather than consider that this is a distortion of currently occurring reality that requires the complicity entertainment like The Hurt Locker engenders in its audience. This is the politics of "apolitical" war films. It's worth considering that in the face of almost unanimous critical acclaim the group with the loudest criticisms of the film are actual soldiers.

 

[...]

Hurt Locker, straight up sexy director

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

On to my acceptance of your gracious invitation.

well I elicited your views, didn't I?

I don’t agree that James is portrayed as a “typical hero”. He takes stupid, unnecessary risks that endanger lives he’s responsible for. Those are not heroic actions. Antiheroic perhaps, tho I suspect you’d say that merely serves to make the character more appealing & hence more odious (tho at a certain point this becomes an impossible argument – if the normally heroic qualities and the “gritty” antiheroic ones both serve to make him more of a squarejawed Yankee, then what doesn’t…) Also, I didn’t read his grin as macho bloodlust at all, rather as a sign of reassurance to a scared, confused soldier under his command.

(nor do I agree that the qualities you listed are uniquely or even especially American. Most of them are widely valued across many cultures including, one might add, Iraqi culture. At least from the Iraqis I’ve known [Chicago, as you likely know, has a large expat pop]. Tho perhaps you’re saying the particular blend makes them American)

What James is, really, is a different stereotype; the white male iconoclast who bucks the system. So is Private Witt from The Thin Red Line & Captain Willard from Apocalypse Now, as well as Private Joker, though his rebellion is sardonic and smirking, which is the real difference between FMJ & THL. The former isn’t really anti-war at all; it’s only anti-military. Everyone is either stupid (the lifers & poges, e.g. the real enemy) or in on the joke (that it’s all nuts) & hence wink-wink, wisecracking cynical – this becomes even more clear if you read the novel its based on. (it’s also all, aside from the sniper, American POV, but no one has a problem w/that in this case b/c the POV is a “good” American, i.e. one you agree & can identify with) THL also says, if not as loudly, “this is madness”, but it delineates between policy and the military that carries out the policy, as FMJ does not.

As to the archetypal characters & war movie clichés, sure, there’s some of that stuff in that there. I thought the psychiatrist (the dude you thought was a chaplain) was particularly silly. The cinematographic style is just Bigelow’s style, which she’s had going back to Point Break & beyond. It’s certainly not videogame-esque in the way, say, Avatar is, & I think that’s kind of a ridiculous charge to make. To the charges of Orientalizing/racism, I refer back to what I already said upthread. It's imperfect & some more balance would've been nice (though it's still better than most war films...) but that's ultimately not what the film is about.

Ultimately, nothing you’ve said really contradicts the notion that your main problem with the film is that it doesn’t present your views. For a movie about the war to have validity, it has to say what you think it should. I’m not sure what exactly it’s “engendering complicity” in, either, given that we’re in the midst of a drawdown (that is, a gradual withdrawal) of American soldiers from Iraq. & the irony of people getting up in arms about this film, really. I mean, where was the f**king outrage the last seven years while this was actually happening? & when there were far more legitimate targets for that outrage…

But I appreciate you pre-empting any potential critique of casting Jordanians as Iraqis, a point no one brought up. One does wonder, though, with the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi refugees in Jordan, why weren't they in the movie? Did they refuse? Did they have a choice?

I think you’re confused here. They did hire Iraqi expats/refugees to play Iraqi characters. Unless I’m misunderstanding what you’re trying to say.

It's worth considering that in the face of almost unanimous critical acclaim the group with the loudest criticisms of the film are actual soldiers.

those criticisms have almost unanimously been of flaws in realism or the incorrect portrayal of technical/procedural things, not politics.

(note: the Marxist bit was directed solely at 3BNP & no one else, tbc)

 

[Gavin]

I don’t agree that James is portrayed as a “typical hero”. He takes stupid, unnecessary risks that endanger lives he’s responsible for.

No he doesn't. There are 0 repercussions for his supposed risks. He freaks out his unit, but that's it. He's exceedingly good at doing his job and never fails, unless you count not rescuing the Iraqi guy strapped with bombs at the end, but who really cares about him? Everyone else had already given up on him, once again proving the moral worth of James, and the overall good intentions of the invasion and occupation. We're there to protect Iraqis from themselves, but gee, it's really hard sometimes!

What James is, really, is a different stereotype; the white male iconoclast who bucks the system. So is Private Witt from The Thin Red Line & Captain Willard from Apocalypse Now, as well as Private Joker, though his rebellion is sardonic and smirking, which is the real difference between FMJ & THL.

He doesn't buck the system, he bucks bureaucracy. He achieves the same goals in his own individualist way, breaking the rules but getting the job done. Just like Batman, Dirty Harry, John Wayne, Kindergarten Cop, Axel Foley, Rowdy Roddy Piper, George W. Bush, etc. etc. This archetype is deeply embedded in American mythology.

Ultimately, nothing you’ve said really contradicts the notion that your main problem with the film is that it doesn’t present your views. For a movie about the war to have validity, it has to say what you think it should. I’m not sure what exactly it’s “engendering complicity” in, either, given that we’re in the midst of a drawdown (that is, a gradual withdrawal) of American soldiers from Iraq. & the irony of people getting up in arms about this film, really. I mean, where was the f**king outrage the last seven years while this was actually happening? & when there were far more legitimate targets for that outrage…

Ultimately nothing you've said responds to the crux of my argument, that this movie is smooths over the moral complications of fighting in an illegal occupation and asks no questions of its audience by presenting a romanticized view of the occupation. It's ideological. It should be critiqued on these grounds, not ignored. You know, like Fox News or a State of the Union address. But I guess this is "getting up in arms" which for some reason is unjustified in a DISCUSSION THREAD ABOUT THE MERITS OF THIS VERY FUCKING MOVIE in which I AM ANSWERING A QUESTION YOU ASKED. According to you even criticizing the way violence is portrayed is off-limits because "that's just her style," as if the director has no choice in how to craft a film! This is really nonsensical flailing on your part, and I have no idea why you would go to such lengths to defend this movie AND simultaneously slam the anti-war movement AND write off any notion that a movie about A CONTROVERSIAL, ILLEGAL, AND UNPOPULAR ONGOING WAR could possibly be political. I mean, what the fuck?