Restrepo

Many recent films have focussed on the American-led campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, to varying degrees of success, the most notable of which being The Oscar-winning Hurt Locker. This eye-opening and wonderfully–crafted film can be seen something of a companion piece to that earlier film, exposing as it does the human cost of conflict; but the fact it is a documentary makes it all the braver and more powerful.

Directed by Brit photographer Tim Hetherington and U.S. writer Sebastian Junger (known for penning The Perfect Storm), Oscar-nominated Restrepo documents the year the pair spent with American troops in Afghanistan for Vanity Fair. They were not just anywhere, however, but stationed in the Korengal Valley, a location described as “the most dangerous place in the world” by CNN and a white-hot point of contact between the Taliban and U.S. forces. The mission of the men was simple: try to put an end to the insurgency and win the hearts and minds of the people. But, as one would expect, their task flirts with futility from the outset and they are sitting ducks on the mountainsides’ terra incognita.

The film takes its name from the outpost, or O.P., that the company managed to establish further into the treacherous valley, which was in turn named after a fallen comrade, who poignantly – and drunkenly – appears at the start of the film: Juan “Doc” Restrepo. Charting the everyday goings on and struggles of the men, the action is tragically interspersed and counterpointed with frank interviews from the campaigns survivors.

These interviews, like the aforementioned Hurt Locker and countless other Vietnam films, lay bare the insidious effects of war and the creeping nausea and insanity it can bring. The impossibility of these soldiers returning to civilian life, as displayed in recent films like Brothers, is as plain as day and expressed by one soldier; their expressions carry a haunted look that expresses some of Kurtz’s “Horror”. One soldier, Cortez, even mentions how he has not been able to sleep since, preferring being awake to the inevitable nightmares.

Objective, bracing and chilling, Restrepo would no doubt be a worthy winner of the Best Documentary Oscar. A necessary film about depressingly current theme; just don’t expect to be left happy at the state of the world when it finishes.

Out on DVD now.