Hurt Locker may win the Academy Award for best film of 2009. It has received accolades galore and it's hard to argue with the quality of the cinematic experience it provides viewers. I certainly wasn't immune to the feelings of empathy for the small group of American soldiers whose perilous existence in Iraq is brilliantly depicted by the director, Kathryn Bigelow, and an ensemble of actors. But especially once I left the theatre and escaped the ever-present tension of wondering whether THIS time the main character, Staff Sgt. William James (Jeremy Renner), would be blown up while attempting to defuse a bomb, I thought more deeply about the nagging misgivings I experienced while under the film's powerful spell.
Feelings, after all, are not facts---at least the only ones--- and Hurt Locker, in common with almost all depictions of war, manipulated our emotions to the point where we lost sight of the political rationale for this particular conflict, its legitimacy and consequences, not only for US soldiers, but for Iraqis whose country we invaded and devastated. When a film essentially "embeds" you on one side there is almost no possibility of not identifying with that side. The "enemy" is anonymous, faceless, simply devoted to killing the soldiers you come to know and care for.
When Clint Eastwood made Letters from Iwo Jima (2007) I thought it was both a brave and brilliant depiction of an iconic WWII battle from the perspective of the hitherto caricatured and reviled Japanese soldier. I still feel that way about the film as a work of art, but I also can understand how angry American vets of the Pacific theatre in WWII ---and others---were at the "humanization" of those infantrymen they fought against in the most unforgiving terrain. The individual Japanese soldier had a biography, a family, loved ones, and the full gamut of emotions all other humans do. But, that soldier, or ones like him, almost always willingly participated in a war of imperial conquest. Japanese soldiers raped and pillaged in China, Korea, the Philippines, Burma and countless other places, leaving tens of millions dead. That is the historical context and can't be ignored.
Likewise, in Hurt Locker, we can appreciate the individual humanity of each of the men we accompany on their missions. We see how their insecurities and fears co-exist with determination or resignation to do what soldiers are expected to do. We can't help wondering how we would react in their shoes. Every hour of every day brings the possibility of instant extinction by a sniper or being blown to bits by a carefully hidden IED.
But what don't we see? Who are the ones trying to kill them? Why are they doing it? To restore the Sunni Baath Party's hegemony that has been upended by the invaders? To prevent an Islamic Republic akin to that in Iran because the Americans, in their ignorance, have empowered political leaders whose views are mirror images of the clerical elite in that Shiite Muslim stronghold? To defend Iraq against a foreign invasion and Occupation---a nationalist resistance movement? Personal revenge because American soldiers shot a wife or brother driving towards a roadside checkpoint for not understanding commands to halt in a language they didn't speak? Not only don't we know---in truth all may be operative depending on the location of the action---but the film never indicates interest in the question at all. No more than Eastwood was concerned about why the Americans were trying to root out the Japanese from Iwo Jima and elsewhere in the first place.
At some points while viewing the film I tried, without much success, to put myself in the position of an Iraqi sniper or IED-employing guerrilla, believing, not without justification, that whatever these individual soldiers believed they were fighting for---apart from sheer survival---the American government was not in Iraq for the benefit of the Iraqi people any more than the British were in the 1920s when they gassed Iraqi villages in ways similar to the way Saddam killed Kurds generations later. Should I be rooting for the insurgents (or members of the resistance as they would prefer to be called)? Perhaps, but it was difficult to want people I "knew," who had charm and vitality, to die, even if their mission was misguided or worse.
It's true that bringing history and politics into the equation can detract from drama, but it can be done. The Battle of Algiers (1962), probably the greatest film about mass political violence ever made, managed to depict with unparalleled skill the nitty-gritty of urban guerrilla warfare and counter-insurgency while putting the larger conflict between French colonialism and a national liberation movement in the forefront of the audience's consciousness. The film took the side of the Algerian anti-colonial movement, but was scrupulous in depicting at least some of the French, most notably the head of the counter-insurgency, with some measure of sympathy as well.
If Hurt Locker falls short of greatness by eliminating the context for warfare, it partially redeems itself by at least raising an issue that war films never wish to address: the problematic nature of the war hero. There is a long tradition in movies---and I'm certain it's not limited to American ones---of glorifying the soldier who goes beyond the call of duty and, risking his own life, slays scores of enemies. Sergeant York (WWI) and Audie Murphy (WWII) were real soldiers who embodied this role---Murphy actually played himself in the movie version of his exploits. Vietnam had a fictional hero, Rambo, played by a truly fictional actor-soldier (Sylvester Stallone sat out the war in Switzerland).
In Hurt Locker the hero is Sgt. James who, gets an adrenaline rush when put in dangerous predicaments by his military specialty (i.e., de-activating explosives), but seeks out opportunities to practice his craft and/or engage the enemy even when it is entirely optional. We marvel at his bravery and ability to cheat death so often, but to her credit, Bigelow, lets us see that perhaps his personality is such that he can't do anything else. He's like Evel Knievel in uniform and without the motorcycle and can't function outside of a combat zone. War alone has given him an opportunity to achieve heroic status. In civilian life he'd most likely get killed driving recklessly, die in a bar fight or bungee jumping. Warfare has often given misfits an opportunity to succeed in the only arena they could cope with. Perhaps the most famous example is Adolf Hitler, who failed in civilian life and blossomed in WWI as a foot soldier. Germany's humiliating defeat---and his subsequent demobilization---set him on a path to restore his short-lived days of glory with consequences we all know.
But the film goes one step further than depicting the war hero with warts. It suggests that heroic soldiers not only risk their own lives, but sometimes are perceived as unnecessarily endangering those of their comrades as well. Moreover, their fellow soldiers know this. In one scene a highly sympathetic member of the team openly contemplates killing Sgt. James to prevent the latter's undisciplined aggressiveness from endangering his comrades. On another occasion, James' gung-ho antics leaves a comrade wounded and the victim expresses his anger directly at the sergeant before being evacuated by helicopter from the combat zone.
The hostility towards some would-be heroes has manifested itself in both unpopular and popular wars. In Vietnam, freshly-minted ROTC grads who became officers and wished to aggressively engage the Vietnamese occasionally found themselves blown up at night in their tents ("fragging") by combat-weary or wary vets who thought well-placed hand-grenades might send a message to the soon-to-be late lieutenants' replacements as well.
Max Hastings, the military journalist/historian of WWII has noted in his work. especially Armageddon: The Battle for Germany, 1944-1945 and Warriors: Portraits from the Battlefield, most soldiers prefer to avoid contact with the enemy and heroes can thwart this inclination. In some cases heroic actions are appreciated by all; in others they are seen as signs of exhibitionism and the hero is a source of concern, dislike or worse.
Hurt Locker doesn't draw a firm conclusion about Sgt. James' heroism. It seems to justify some of his actions, but not others. But by showing how totally uncomfortable he feels in a civilian lifestyle, coupled with his almost manic desire to take risks in a military context and the unhappiness that produces in men we also care about, it's hard to escape the conclusion that James is not someone we can truly glorify.
What effect on audiences this nuanced portrait will have is unclear. As Anthony Swofford, the former Marine sniper and Gulf war memoirist (Jarhead), observes in describing the effects of supposed anti-Vietnam war films his fellow marines viewed before going to Iraq:
"There is talk that many Vietnam films are anti-war, that the message is war is inhumane and look what happens when you train young American men to fight and kill, they turn their fighting and killing everywhere, they ignore their targets and desecrate the entire country...But actually, Vietnam films are all pro-war, no matter what the supposed message..." Would-be soldiers, he says, "...watch these same films and are excited by them, because the magic brutality of the films celebrates the terrible and despicable beauty of their fighting skills. Fight, rape, war, pillage burn. Filmic images are pornography for the military man...getting him ready for his real First Fuck."
Hurt Locker may be intended to provide its audience with a complex message: we should support the troops even if we don't know why they are fighting and some of them are crazy, because we need those people at times, even if Iraq wasn't the time or place. A tough one to digest. Far easier to appreciate as military porn for the high school kids in the audience who might end up keeping unemployment rates down by signing up.
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