| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| BaftaBaby |
Posted - 09/07/2009 : 12:29:05
I'm going to toss my own bomb into the largely positive if not rhapsodic praise for Kathryn Bigelow's very boy-sy version of life among the disposal specialists of Iraq. Their raison d'etre is cleaning up. As though all the problems have been solved. As though Bush spoke true when he declared the war over.
First of all, what's all this bullshit that there's not been a better film about what Iraq does to people? Haven't they seen In the Valley of Elah? Haven't they seen Broomfield's Haditha? And I'm betting - for an examination of the realities of war - they never even heard of Renoir's La Grande Illusion let alone seen it. Oh, yeah, and how could I forget Eastwood's WWII diptych of Flags and Letters.
All of those made me cry. They made me care about the people portrayed ... on both sides.
I heard a discussion claiming the Hurt Locker was unbiased. Yeah, and the Leaning Tower of Pisa is straight.
I will happily concede that Jeremy Renner (who looks like he could be the best-looking of the Belushi brothers) - is excellent as the unpredictable guy who loves disarming bombs -- even more than his family. And I really appreciated the ensemble acting that allowed stars on the order of Ralph Fiennes, Guy Pearce, and David Morse never to overshadow either the three main characters of Bravo Company or the few Iraquis we get to meet for a moment.
Bigelow, and her film-festival award winning screenwriter Mark Boal (a former embedded journalist with a real disposal team) also make time for some personal, private moments, which is an angle seldom taken by rufty-tufty toys-for-boys films. And I'm not saying those films don't have their place ... possibly.
Ackroyd's cinematography perfectly captures the simultaneous clarity and haze of the locations which resonate with the emotional conflict of the soldiers. That conflict is buried under booze and banter until some cumulative incidents call it to question.
The problem is, such powerful moral dilemmas need to be anchored to people we can identify with. Otherwise we're just observing, like they do to the Iraquis through binoculars. Platoon did the same thing, also Saving Private Ryan, both admirably crafted films. And so did the disasterous Pearl Harbor.
Bigelow has already proved she can play rough with added style. What she hasn't proved is that she's as interested in people as abstract and not very original generalities.
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