Hollywood has finally found its voice on the Iraq war by nominating The Hurt Locker for nine Academy awards. This is an important step for understanding the human cost of this conflict and healing the wounds of this tragic war.
The Hurt Locker's producer-director, Kathryn Bigelow, said recently that she "makes movies, not speeches." This is a wise approach in the Iraq war case, since the battle lines about the need to go to war were drawn long ago. She does not attempt to re-fight that battle, but rather speaks to the broader audience about the experience of war and its incredible human costs. In one sense, the movie can be seen as a parable about American experiences in Iraq.
The movie takes the audience through one month in the life of an explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) team in the early stages of the occupation of Iraq. An EOD team is a fitting symbol of the Iraq war because of the extreme risks involved in both. , When we invaded Iraq we unleashed forces we did not understand -- forces that the EOD team members have to face and U.S. soldiers are grappling for the right course of action.
The team's experience in the film is a microcosm of the American experience in Iraq. They made up of warriors with varying degrees of experience, but they are by no means typically heroic. They instead represent all that is us...proud, competent, driven, and patriotic, yet sometimes naïve, impetuous and reckless. In one scene, the main character, Sergeant First Class James, solves one intense situation only to find that he is facing a much deeper and more complex threat--an apt metaphor for America's early experience in Iraq. There is something to admire in Sergeant James, but the cigarette constantly dangling from his mouth, the inability to relate to anything in his life but conflict, and his rashness are all signs that he is a war addict.
Indeed, the Hurt Locker does have a message of the impact on the individuals involved. The movie opens with the quote "war is a drug" from Chris Hedges book War is a Force That Gives US Meaning. Hedges suggests that war seduces societies, a concept echoed in the writings of retired Army Colonel Andrew Bacevich, who fears that America has fallen in love with militarism. And certainly, some members of the team are seduced by war, but the canvas of this film is much broader.
The film depicts the human cost of this conflict. We see the physical cost on the team members, and we see the toll on their families. While Iraq has largely fallen of the front page, the conflict continues and 100,000 US servicemembers remain in country. Because of the nature of our all-volunteer military, most Americans are immune to the war's real impact. In the Vietnam conflict, a whole generation of American males were subject to the draft and more than 8 million men and women served during the Vietnam Era. It was this commonality of experience that made the opposition to the war so powerful.
Of course, now we have a professional fight force and embedded journalists, so we turn away from what the war is doing to us as individuals. While we honor our servicemembers, we rarely have to look at the brutality of multiple deployments, of broken bodies and spirits and families pushed to brink. The Hurt Locker believes it is its mission to take you there. We see something of the Iraqi populace too, and their portrayal is nuanced, for while there are insurgents, the more common sense is that they are victims of the circumstances of war.
We like our heroes to be two-dimensional, and our military members have in recent years been given the same treatment. We salute their service, have a parade and close the door to the details. For five years, news about Iraq occupied our national conscious. But it has faded into the background, prematurely I think. The Hurt Locker returns us to the point where we need to be -- examining the impact upon those we ask to serve.
Paul Clarke is a retired Air Force officer, who worked as on the White House staffs of Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. In 2006, he deployed to support air operations over Iraq and Afghanistan. He is a Senior Fellow with the Truman National Security Project. The views expressed are his own.
Best Iraq-era documentary, corruption: "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room"
Best parable on energy, manipulation and the War on Terror: "Monsters, Inc."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/25/AR2010022506161_pf.html
Agree with you, on all counts. Hurt Locker, in my opinion, is one of the greatest, realisitic and impacting war films of all time. No guns ablazing, no rambos, no glorification of this scourge that is humanity's need for war and conquering.
Ironic that such a bottomless pit of misery, our invasion of Iraq, is the inspiration for such a great work of art. Kuddos to Ms. Bigelow! As I sat, mesmerized, at her interview on 60 Minutes last night, I realized that only she could have done it. She is a remarkable human being, regardless of gender.
Too close. The wounds are still open, from out own arrogance and stupidity.
Viet Nam films started coming out five to ten years following the fall of Saigon, and even then were pretty muddled in their messages. As any film where the ostensible good guys like us are inclined to be when we in fact are the aggressors, the bullies, the ones picking fights.
We had no business going to Iraq in the first place, it was a fabricated war based on oil. Watching John Wayne diffuse bombs after the demolishing of Bagdad left me indifferent.