"Restrepo: A Critical Review", 2010
(The assignment, given as a joke by a former colleague: a 2 - 3 page, logically organized critical review. 10 points off if you don't have a clear thesis statement in your opening paragraph.)
The Argentinean writer José Narosky once said, “In war, there are no unwounded soldiers,” and this film seeks to illustrate his point. This film, while similar to many other films made recently about America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, does I think the best job of capturing just how affected our soldiers are after seeing combat. The wounds may not be physical or visible, but each soldier has them nonetheless.
The film follows a platoon serving a fifteen-month deployment in 2007 in the Korengal Valley of Afghanistan, considered the deadliest place on earth by the US military. It is remote, inaccessible except by roads that are constantly destroyed by insurgents or by helicopter. The soldiers fighting at that outpost are under fire constantly, engaging the enemy sometimes four-six times a day. A new commander comes in with the platoon, and he is determined to make progress in the valley. One of his projects is to build a new outpost on an isolated hill, which they name OP Restrepo after a soldier who is killed shortly after their arrival in the valley.
The film documents the battle scenes, but it is nothing new for American filmgoers. The battle scenes are tame compared to what we see in other films, such as the Hollywood versions of the Iraq war, The Hurt Locker and Stop-Loss, or in Afghanistan in Brothers. Other films, documentaries, have also been made with real footage while following soldiers around, such as The War Tapes and Brothers at War. Restrepo shows the day-to-day life of soldiers when not fighting, the camaraderie they share, the jokes they play on each other to stay amused and relieve tension, but we’ve seen that before as well, in Jarhead and Brothers at War. So, with respect to the footage, both its content and means of attainment, Restrepo is nothing special.
This film has no overt agenda. It simply shows the footage of the soldiers in their outpost and on patrol, interspersed with interviews after they’ve returned from the front. There is no narration, no political leanings. The soldiers don’t discuss their views on the war, unlike other films such as The War Tapes or Body of War. They relive their experiences for us but there is little reflection, just recollection.
It is these interviews with the platoon members that set Restrepo apart from other war films. The film is one best seen on the big screen if possible, if only to be able to see the look in their eyes as they remember what happened in that outpost. The best way to describe this look is haunted, because these soldiers are seeing something that will never leave them, that they will never forget, that we as civilians will never be able to see no matter how many war films we watch. One man, while telling about an operation in which several men were wounded and one was killed, asks for a moment to recover. He doesn’t cry, and that is what is most striking about this film. Their voices are flat, the emotion is hidden, but their eyes betray them. Those haunted eyes beg you to understand what they did, why they did it. They beg you to help them live with what they experienced; not forget, as one soldier says, but process.
Restrepo reminds us that many of our soldiers are young boys, inexperienced when it comes to death be it that of the enemy or of one of their own. The grief is raw and painful to watch as one man breaks down in battle after learning that his friend has been killed; but what is worse is to watch the others try to comfort him while also steering him back into battle, knowing that with the enemy surrounding them he can’t afford to lose focus. Their commanding officer is more blunt; after learning that a sister company lost nine men while constructing a new outpost he tells them that yes, men die but they knew that coming in, so there is nothing to do but grieve quickly and then continue with their mission.
It’s hard to know for whom to feel worse, the average soldiers or their commander. The soldiers interviewed are shell-shocked, scared, trying to be brave; but the commanders, I think, have it worse, knowing that they are responsible both to their men, to keep them safe and alive, and to their mission, which dictates that there will be casualties, both civilian and military, in the name of securing peace. This is a dichotomy that is easy for Americans to forget when all we hear are politicized reports of the wars, promoting an agenda.
One thing that Restrepo leaves out is the effect on the family, something that is brought up in most other war films – The War Tapes, Stop-Loss, Brothers at War, Brothers, Body of War, and even Vietnam-era film We Were Soldiers Once. Instead we have the soldiers telling about how they think the war impacts their loved ones, how they attempt to shield their families from knowing just how bad these things are. The commanding officer says that he called his wife to tell her he loved her before going on a dangerous mission; does she understand why he was calling, know the specific danger that he's about to face? Has she accepted it in her role as a military wife, or does she beg for him to come home and not return to the front? These are questions left unaddressed.
Another question with which the film leaves us is how are the soldiers doing now. Did the injured recover fully from their wounds? Did they sign up for another tour? As we’ve learned from films such as The Hurt Locker and Stop-Loss, and as one soldier even says, the rush in battle is impossible to match in civilian life, more addictive than crack to some. And then, as we see with the commanders, there is that dedication to one’s soldiers and one’s mission that leaves one with the obligation to re-enlist, despite having a wife and children at home.
Despite the lack of narration and political message, we leave this film with a few lessons. First, war is futile. As we are told at the end of the film, over fifty soldiers lost their lives fighting in the Korengal Valley (I taught with the mother of one of them), yet the US military withdrew from it in April 2010. The film shows us weekly meetings between US commanders and local village elders, yet little progress is made because each is stubborn in achieving his goal, their common goal – peace – through his own methods. The commanding officer tries to explain that the US is only interested in finding the insurgents and that by aiding them the villagers are responsible for casualties, but the elders of course are concerned with their own preservation, meaning playing to both sides if necessary. In a battle for the hearts and minds of the populace, fought on rugged, remote terrain, there is little chance that conventional military firepower can win.
This brings us to the main point of Restrepo, which is that war leaves a mark on our soldiers. One man admits that he’s on sleeping pills but he refuses to take them because he’d rather be awake without nightmares than asleep with them. He laughs it off, but it’s obvious that he is suffering. Many of our soldiers who’ve seen combat are suffering the effects of PTSD. For example, just last week in Minot, ND, a combat vet, discharged five months ago due to PTSD, grabbed six loaded guns and led law enforcement on a car chase that ended in a two-hour standoff. Fortunately he wasn’t killed or hurt, nor was anyone else, but this is just the latest in a string of suicide attempts for the poor man who admits that drinking is the only way to keep the nightmares at bay, who admits he wants to die rather than relive what he saw in his three tours of Iraq. This man is 28.
The lesson of this film is that we ask our soldiers to do horrible things in the name of our security and freedom, yet when they return from their tours we ignore their symptoms. This film reminds us that our fellow citizens choose to be soldiers and we have obligations to them: to pick our fights carefully so that their lives won’t have been lost in vain, and to support them in their battles once they return. We can’t empathize, never having experienced what they have, but we can sympathize. This film isn’t about the politics of whether we should be fighting these wars; it’s about what we can do to support the soldiers fighting these wars for us.
(While this and all the films mentioned in this review are worth watching, Operation Homecoming, which is vignettes written by soldiers about their war experiences, is by far the best film out there about the war. It’s available on Netflix as well as here.)