Review of the movie « War » Ray Mendoza and Alex Harlend

Warfare is a new hyper -realistic movie Alex Harlend. The same one who almost propheticly removed the « uprising of the states » about the uprising in the United States against the president, very similar to Donald Trump. Now Harlend describes the events of 2006 in Iraq. The military team, consisting of American seashells and Iraqi scouts, fulfills a secret mission for the swaying of al-Qaeda leaders.

The movie has already been released in the US, Britain and 13 other countries. But unfortunately, not in Ukraine. For Up. Culture review of this hyper -realistic tape about war writes film critic and military Yaroslav Pidhora-Gvyadovsky. It shows how the film is subject to an understanding of war and why it is worth watching in Ukraine both viewers and movie producers.

It’s not just a movie about war. Like all timely, Harlend’s film came out right now – when the war goes in Ukraine, and when we are not yet able to speak about our war, without the right time for understanding and reflection, and with conscience to take only when we can, if we can, and not just want to say, express, show, show.

Ukrainian cinema, as a battlefield, littered with corpses of good intentions, for which, in fact, many creators would expect posthumous hell, in the absence of life democratic institutions and structures that would commit a court of honor, if not a court of business or taste, squeezing a variety « .

The movie « War » gives us the opportunity to absently, at the expense of others, to see and feel what war is in its smallest manifestation – in the trivial moment of one ordinary for a soldier of the day, with the usual and banal task without the visible threat of a deadly battle. Thus to say – there is nothing trivial in the war, if even the elementary task becomes deadly. This is the case in the war. And this movie is a lack of safety every minute. And the 2006 Iraq became a stage for a public cruel demonstration of zero romance and maximum moment.

The Sea Sea Group performs tasks in the town of Ramadi-hiding in the house, they follow the suspected al-Qaeda terrorists. Suddenly on the street is a noise, women with children run away at home, and from the loudspeakers a voice is shouted, calling, according to the translator, to the jihad and the murder of Americans.

The battle begins without warning, not according to the plan and without the clarity that you expect from the trained military. Closed in the house of Americans are thrown by grenades and start firing on all sides. The decision is to go out, move to Bradley and – sew. But at the time of release, there is an explosion in the center of the group – or a shot of the RPG, or the remote undermined pre -laid charge.

Frame from the movie

Iraqi translator-200th, two Americans-heavy 300s with numerous shrapnel wounds. All the rest are injured and disoriented. But it is necessary to survive and fight. And how it happens gives more information to aware of the nature of combat – about the reality of war – than most described in our documentaries and all other American fighters.

In the house and on the street zero visibility, like a dust storm. Only a storm without sound. Silence. The fighters gradually « wake up » from the tightness of shock and acoustic waves. And none of the wounded is in no hurry to impose turnstiles, because they were elementary in a shutdown.

And all the military from the first moments of exercises or service teach to impose turnstiles on the affected limbs immediately after injury, with eyes closed, at the level of automatism and for clear 25-30 seconds, that is, until you do not fall from blood flowing. The requirement is correct, but as shown in the « war », in the situation after the explosion – is indiscriminate. Next – more.

Frame from the movie

The mutilated soldiers scream with pain, begging for morphine. (In the Ukrainian army, such severe painkillers are forbidden to issue soldiers, and they have only paramedics. One of the brothers tries to stab the wounded morphine, but instead injects himself in his finger, confusing the ends of the syringe. The other tries to cut the pants with such powerful scissors that we have always advertised as « those that cut shoes », but they cut badly. Then he tamped the wound, despite the wild scream of the fighter, screaming a hemostatic bandage into one of the holes on his leg.

And only after that, completely « drunk » from barotraum, « unnecessary » try to tighten the turnstile on the wounded. After 5-7 minutes! And not 25-30 seconds! At the same time, the shaking of the hands does not allow them to get the end of the ribbon into the hole of the buckle, like a thread into a needle, closer to seconds of life to a likely death. Or not? But so. Because everything that happens on the screen in front of the viewer was clearly recorded and registered-because it was experienced on its own skin-a participant in the trivial (?) Observation, and in combination with one of the screenwriters and directors of the film Rhey Mendoza, a veteran of the Iraqi War and a « sea cat ».

Frame from the movie

Every detail of the war – in quotes and without paws – he worked at the level of his own experience and in discussing with the rest of the fighters, his real brothers. Therefore, every detail has its place and its time, so nothing is superfluous. The movie takes 95 minutes, just as many soldiers were in the house and leaving it, that is, in real time.

Each movement of the actors was directed by Rhem, and not only a screenwriter, but also a reem-military consultant. And to get a ribbon in the buckle – it is his experience, his memory, his pain, when he tried to help his wounded friend (already on the titers we will see his real, not the actor, alive, but without one leg).

From time to time, the movie seems to be wing, completely losing the sound. So Mendosa and Garland transferred the state of prostration of the fighters, getting rid of the contusion, oppressed to the surrounding, as if covered with a shielding savannah of silence. And contusion is considered to be almost a mosquito bite, waving such a diagnosis of a soldier, despite him.

And disdain in general is present in the army, in the Ukrainian, as well as injuries (as if small), and to the diseases (as if innocent), and to pain (you are a soldier – tolerate!). So one of the new group who came to the rescue of the « seals » clamped in the house, indifferently affects the wounded foot of a fighter, barely alive from the court of pain. And then it affects it again, and for that it already gets the threat from the commander to fade.

Because the essence is not only that the cut of the soldier’s legs and yet tortured turnstiles – this is in itself similar to torture, and it is often not possible to withstand them. And in the care of the wounded, no matter how it sounds pretentious in the smoke. After all, humanity and empathy are something that distinguishes any of us, fighters for good and just, from all « them », devoid of feelings of just and good.

Frame from the movie

Transferred to the screen « that case », from almost 20-year-old past, valuable precisely because of its imperfection in the memory and consciousness of the veteran of Mendoza and because of his skill in the transfer of almost literal, permanent, millimeter. Although the film was not shot in Iraq, but somewhere in London, approximately reflecting the place of the event at that time, everything was modeling in it for three weeks of training and rehearsals, forcing the actors to embody in the images of a soldier with a mystical sense of reality.

All elements of the projectile, weapons and behavior of soldiers – as it should be in reality. The fact that some knee pad only on one leg is associated not with the forgetfulness of an actor or consultant, but with a purely practical optional have a second knee pad, because, as a rule, you sit down only for one, convenient for aiming the knee. And the sniper rifle of the soldier is heterogeneously intentionally – this is such a camouflage. Both chevrons and shoulder straps are not on soldiers (except American flags), because they are not put on operations, so as not to attract unnecessary views of enemies.

The maximum correspondence of reality is the purpose of the film, almost his mission. An unprecedented professionalism for Ukrainian cinema in the embodiment of the plan, in dramatic and psychological task is at the same time the display « as is » and the display « as necessary », when pathos, not necessary and not used at the beginning, arises in the form of a twist, automatic through the work of soldiers and their devotion.

Frame from the movie

« War » is therefore hyper -realistic, because the reality here is deliberately sharpened as a pencil, and it is easy to stab the one who does not expect such acuteness that can be painful. But so it is necessary. To finally be clear. To make it noticeable. War is a torn body, it is a wild pain, it is horror beyond patience; This cannot be imagined until you perceive your own sense organs; It cannot be used to this, and everything is usual only for a soldier, and not for civilian. The « war » of Ray Mendosi and Alex Harlend about it and for this purpose – to show and let it be clear.