Political documentaries are a dime-a-dozen these days, though it’s not often that we get an apolitical doc. Most of them tend to be anti-war or left-wing, with some being conservative (and most of those are replies to left-wing docs such as “Celsius 41.11” or “Farenhype 9/11”), but rarely will you find a film about current events that is completely neutral. The Sundance Grand-Jury Prize winning “Restrepo” (by first-time film-makers Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington) claims to be even-handed focusing more on relationships between the soldiers in one regiment rather than being a commentary on the war or the politics involved in it. While it does go to great lengths to avoid taking a stance, it can’t avoid it, and because of its insistence on following the soldiers and nothing else, the film unfortunately misses a lot of great cinematic opportunities.
“Restrepo” follows one platoon, for a year, in the Korangel Valley in Afghanistan. The Korengal Valley is only six miles long, but managed to contain 1/5th of the fighting. The danger in this area was immense (we’ve now pulled out), with the troops constantly getting into various battles and casualties accumulating much too quickly. Opening the film is a bittersweet camera phone video of four soldiers before they are deployed, goofing off and making faces. The camera man here, Restrepo, says that he is ready for war. Barely a half hour goes by in the film and this officer is killed, the remaining soldiers of the platoon naming their new Korangel Base after him. It is at this moment that we realize that the film isn’t just your typical anti-war documentary: it most certainly is anti-war (no matter how many times the filmmakers will say its apolitical), but instead of focusing (or at least mentioning) the politicians and the bigger picture, the film is scaled down and focuses on the soldiers and their relationships with one another, which turns out to be their main driving force in this messy situation.
The directors capture the platoon’s time here, giving us a glimpse of their year as they deal with locals, kill time, and try to survive. The film is shot digitally and hand-held, wherever the soldiers are, and these scenes are intercut with interviews with various members of the unit as they reflect on what has happened. These instances seem to do nothing other than disrupt the flow of the film. Switching between these beautifully lit interviews and the on-the-fly rough digital footage is jarring and completely unnecessary. One of the most impressive things about the film is the guts the filmmakers had in going along with the troops, unarmed and completely open to attack. This results in some very genuine and honest material, so why not make the entire film with that footage? These interviews are certainly not awful, but nearly all of it is superfluous and all of their viewpoints and relationships are clearly displayed without having to reiterate them. It almost seems like the directors included these interviews to prove that the soldiers are committed to the task at hand, but one wishes these segments dug a bit deeper, allowing these troops a vocal opportunity to talk about their feelings on the war.
Because of the filmmakers’ singular focus, additional themes, messages, and questions are often disregarded completely. One scene has an elder arguing with the leader of the squad, complaining that the ones that have died have nothing to do with the Taliban. This could’ve been easily been connected to a later scene of a US casualty and plenty of parallels could have been drawn, but instead the scenes are shown separately, at different times, with any similarities largely ignored. The scenes are still there, but there is no connection, and as it stands, major points are completely overlooked in favor of the simplified narrative. These aren’t revolutionary ideas, but they could be handled in a clever and subtle way that would give the film the life that it lacks. It would have to be handled properly so the intimate feeling that the film-makers were going for wouldn’t be destroyed, but it’s definitely something that should’ve been explored rather than cast aside. That said, it is to the filmmakers’ credit that they don’t excise some of the more uncomfortable statements by the soldiers either. Some of the film’s darker moments contain clips of the troops talking excitedly about killing, with one solider claiming it to be “like crack.” However, true to the filmmaker’s intentions, the film does not judge them in any way, and the utmost respect is given to these soldiers even in the face of some highly questionable statements and viewpoints.
Despite the film’s success in focusing on the relationships between the soldiers, there’s still a feeling of detachment. While the filmmakers do explore a side we rarely see, in particular with the sequences involving the locals and the soldiers, the film very quickly becomes routine; once it falls into repetition, the scenes that are supposed to show how the soldiers spend their off-time become rather redundant. While there are some very, very genuine scenes here, without even touching the bigger picture and not pushing the small moments hard enough, the film ends up coming up short. This could have been something rather incredible, but unfortunately, as it stands, it’s a decent documentary that makes you wonder about its wasted potential. [C]