The Hurt Locker (2009)
Jul. 24th, 2009 08:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
randy_byersI tend to be leery of war movies, but based on good reviews and a compelling trailer ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
holyoutlaw and I saw this one at the Egyptian last night. It's about a bomb squad in Iraq in 2004. It is an absolutely riveting, intense experience, since as Luke pointed out you never know what's going to happen next. One of the interesting things about it is that it takes no political stance toward the war, or at least the politics are deeply integrated into the story. There's no discussion of why these American soldiers are in Iraq, what the larger strategic or imperial goals are. It's about three guys trying to survive and perform a job, and it is in particular a character study of one guy who gets off on the adrenaline rush of defusing bombs -- of facing death over and over again.
The narrative is episodic, and the episodes are centered on different kinds of bombs -- IEDs, car bombs, a body bomb, a suicide bomber. They also run into a group of British mercenary bounty-hunters ("contractors") at one point and are involved in a gun battle alongside them. There are episodes between the bomb-defusing and combat where the tension and dread is ramped down and the characters seek release and recovery of their humanity. The camera keeps us in close; we're with the unit, almost part of it. (As with Public Enemies, there is a you-are-there video look, but it's not so anachronistically jarring.) At the same time, just as there isn't much overt political commentary, there isn't much psychological probing. For the most part we are just shown what these soldiers do, and even when what they do is personal or idiosyncratic, it isn't tied to biography or character analysis. The main character doesn't know why he gets off on taking crazy risks any more than we do. The closest we get is a soliloquy spoken to his infant son, in which he tells us how he feels but not why.
The title is enigmatic, perhaps poetic. It's hard to say what it means, but it tugs at understanding. This is a tense, terse, powerful, unsettling film, directed by Kathryn Bigelow. It left me almost physically shaken, and yet meditative. It delves unflinchingly into the horrors and dangers of war, and yet it circles around a charismatic figure who gets off on it. At that level, perhaps it is a political statement about America.
holyoutlaw and I saw this one at the Egyptian last night. It's about a bomb squad in Iraq in 2004. It is an absolutely riveting, intense experience, since as Luke pointed out you never know what's going to happen next. One of the interesting things about it is that it takes no political stance toward the war, or at least the politics are deeply integrated into the story. There's no discussion of why these American soldiers are in Iraq, what the larger strategic or imperial goals are. It's about three guys trying to survive and perform a job, and it is in particular a character study of one guy who gets off on the adrenaline rush of defusing bombs -- of facing death over and over again.The narrative is episodic, and the episodes are centered on different kinds of bombs -- IEDs, car bombs, a body bomb, a suicide bomber. They also run into a group of British mercenary bounty-hunters ("contractors") at one point and are involved in a gun battle alongside them. There are episodes between the bomb-defusing and combat where the tension and dread is ramped down and the characters seek release and recovery of their humanity. The camera keeps us in close; we're with the unit, almost part of it. (As with Public Enemies, there is a you-are-there video look, but it's not so anachronistically jarring.) At the same time, just as there isn't much overt political commentary, there isn't much psychological probing. For the most part we are just shown what these soldiers do, and even when what they do is personal or idiosyncratic, it isn't tied to biography or character analysis. The main character doesn't know why he gets off on taking crazy risks any more than we do. The closest we get is a soliloquy spoken to his infant son, in which he tells us how he feels but not why.
The title is enigmatic, perhaps poetic. It's hard to say what it means, but it tugs at understanding. This is a tense, terse, powerful, unsettling film, directed by Kathryn Bigelow. It left me almost physically shaken, and yet meditative. It delves unflinchingly into the horrors and dangers of war, and yet it circles around a charismatic figure who gets off on it. At that level, perhaps it is a political statement about America.
