It never occurred to me that Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington’s terrific documentary Restrepo could ever be construed as being pro-war. To the contrary, by offering an immediate, harrowing, ground-level dose of the fighting, it should cause any reasonable person to wonder what it is we’re really asking of the young men and women who are there doing our dirty work. About Afghanistan specifically, it’s an unsettlingly bleak account of how the fighting is going and how little we’ve accomplished despite the bravery and apparent best intentions of the soldiers on the ground tasked with making the best of a bad situation.
That’s practically treason itself in some conservative quarters, but that’s not enough for those who demand a movie that spoon feeds its audience a specific political point of view. Not surprisingly, blogotainer Jeff Wells is one of those people. Restrepo avoids (in my view admirably) taking an overtly political stand on the whys and wherefores of the war in Afghanistan in favor of a close-up look at what the fighting is really like. Wells? He’s “sick of that shit.”
There’s no question whatsover (sic) that this movie lies through omission about what’s really going on in Afghanistan in the broader, bigger-picture sense…For realism’s sake Restrepo chooses to isolate its audience inside the insular operational mentality of the grunts — “get it done,” “fill up more sandbags,” “ours not to reason why” and so on. In so doing it misleads and distorts in a way that any fair-minded person would and should find infuriating. Is there any other way to describe a decision to keep viewers ignorant about any broader considerations — anything factual or looming in a political/tactical/situational sense — that might impact the fate of the subjects, or their mission?
(The bold emphasis belongs to Wells. It’s his favored method of poking his finger into your chest in case you’re too stupid to grasp his simplistic views.)
To answer Wells’ last question directly: Yes, it’s called objectivity. Restrepo is not about whether we should be in Afghanistan or whether we should stay in Afghanistan now that we’re there. Restrepo takes the fact of us being in Afghanistan as read and it seeks a closer look at what that really means for the people involved. Though you can argue whether that makes for a weaker documentary or not, it’s a perspective anyone who claims to have an opinion about the war, one way or the other, should be armed with. But Wells wants more. He seems to want a polemic that agrees with his view that “the Afghan War is pure quicksand.” What’s more, if you’re not arguing loudly for the United States picking up its marbles and going home, you’re apparently arguing in favor continuing and expanding the war itself.
To bolster his stand, Wells yesterday turned to Bill Cody’s poorly focused and limply argued piece at Rope of Silicon that labels Sebastian Junger as “very pro-war” and suggests that the programmers at Sundance were either for the war themselves or had somehow been fooled into thinking Restrepo was something it wasn’t. Disliking a documentary because it does nothing to further your own point of view is one thing, but to accuse Restrepo of having “a pro-war current” as Wells does at the conclusion of his Rope of Silicon Anti-Afghan War Band of Brothers admiration piece is just silly.
One of the sources Cody points to for his opinion that Junger is pro-war is a May 2010 interview the journalist/author/filmmaker did with Charlie Rose. For most of the interview, Junger takes the microscopic view of the soldiers’ experiences as he does in Restrepo, but here’s the relevant bit at the end where he opines on the wider situation:
I’ve been going there since 1996. I was there in 2001 when Kabul fell and I was walking around on the streets of Kabul and Afghans were hugging me because I was American. The amount of goodwill in that country for what we had done – toppling the Taliban, liberating the Afghan people – was unbelievable and it’s a very sad thing for me to see that [the support among the Afghans] has been eroded over the years. And it was eroded because we did not – in my opinion – we did not follow through on the war. There weren’t enough men there wasn’t enough financial support. We kind of walked away from it. So now we’re in a real fight. It wasn’t a real fight in 2002. It was easy. It was on a platter and something like 90 percent of the Afghan population was glad that we’d done what we’d done. Now we’re in a real fight. I mean look. The Allies pushed the German army out of Europe. If the West wants to defeat the Taliban, they can defeat the Taliban. It’s a matter of political will. There is some number of men and resources that would get the job done.
When pressed by Rose to say whether we should reinforce or withdraw completely from Afghanistan, Junger reluctantly answers:
If it’s important to the West and I think it should be, they need to put more resources and more men into that country. All the troubles are coming from the fact that it was done on the cheap in my opinion. If we walked out of there I could understand the logic to that and it may never come back to bite us. I don’t know. I know it’ll be a bloodbath in Afghanistan. It’ll go right back to the 90s. If it’s the western countries that we’re concerned about it may be ok, but maybe not.
Junger is clearly in favor of continuing the war in Afghanistan which many reasonable people strenuously disagree with, but does that make him “pro-war”? By Wells’ eerily George Bushian binary “you’re either for us or against us” logic, it apparently does. If you’re not for a full and immediate troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, then you are for war in general and anything you say about any war is automatically suspect.
Of course the opinion of one entertainment blogger doesn’t amount to any kind of prevailing attitude and ordinarily I’d just ignore it and move on, but Afghanistan is one of the key issues of our time and I’m wondering what other people think. If you’ve seen Restrepo, do you think it is pro-war or anti-war or neither? Regardless of whether you’ve seen it (but you should), do you think documentaries in general need to have a strong point of view to be worthwhile, or do you favor a more objective, fly-on-the-wall, observe and report approach? Knowing Sebastian Junger’s views on the conflict, do you think he’s even capable of being objective?
Filed under: Opinion
Tags: Restrepo, Sebastian Junger
I haven’t seen Restrepo myself and I’m ambivalent toward the war, as well, but I think there’s a point Wells was trying to make. He just couldn’t get at it (so he bludgeoned the reader with B.S. instead).
When a popular film such as this or The Hurt Locker depicts the “unadulterated truth” about war without taking a political stance, it inevitably strikes a nerve with a certain segment of the population that sees the war, but can totally ignore the hell if it’s not highlighted, underlined and rubbed in their noses. It’s the one aspect that troubled me (only slightly) about the otherwise fantastic Hurt Locker. I knew, sitting in the audience with me, someone was staring up at the screen as Cambridge was blown to smithereens thinking how AWESOME this movie is and not registering the human life that was snuffed out. Similarly, someone out there now counts Sgt. James as a hero because he’s an adrenaline junkie who puts his life and the lives of his squad on the line.
Obviously, the filmmaker can’t guarantee any given reaction from a viewer. And it’s not the fault of these films if some of the viewers are dunces or warmongers who get their rocks off by explosions without considering the consequences. And this aspect doesn’t detract anything from these types of films, when they’re done well, as The Hurt Locker was. It’s just an ugly reality.
I thought good documentaries don’t tell the viewer how to think, but instead present the events and people involved and let the audience take away what they will. Maybe this isn’t the History Channel documentary about the war that Wells wanted to see but simply a documentary that depicts the experience of being in combat. I haven’t seen the documentary, so I can’t speak to it, but I don’t see what’s wrong with that.
Maybe Wells should just rewatch Rambo 4. I’ve heard it’s quite the anti-war film.
I don’t know which documentaries you’ve been watching, Joel, but most of the big name ones–especially from the last three decades–have strongly advocated for or against something. I don’t think that’s a good thing–it’s almost always a lazy, dishonest approach on the part of the filmmaker–but it’s what’s happening.
That is certainly the case, WJ, and I think we agree on this issue. I’ve seen and enjoyed my share of advocacy docs in the past decade. I don’t think they represent impartial journalism, but to be fair, no journalism is truly impartial. However most docs don’t even try to aim for it. I try to applaud the ones that do, rather than tear them down as Wells seems to be doing here. Again, I haven’t seen Restrepo so I could be wrong about his premise, but that certainly seems to be what he is objecting to.
In one sense, Wells isn’t wrong. An in depth look at the bigger picture of the war in Afghanistan would be great, but Restrepo just isn’t that documentary and it’s wrong to criticize it on those grounds.
Besides, the “truth” of the war isn’t going to be understood probably for decades. A documentary now would be a bit premature. If the story of the Iraq war had been written in 2007, it would’ve been much different than one written even a year later.
If you simply want anti-war opinions, they’re everywhere you look, but nowhere do you get a sense of what it’s really like to be actually fighting the war. That’s what this documentary does well.
It’s also wrong to say the film “lies through omission” or that it is in any way “for” the war in Afghanistan. Yes, Junger supports the war and he thinks we should double down, but that’s not the point of the film. As I said above, if anything you come away with the sinking feeling of the hopelessness of it all. The outpost that gives the film its title is sort of symbolic of the whole fiasco.
That’s not to say Restrepo is perfect. Like Wells, I’d have liked a broader context as well… specifically I’d have liked to have known more about what life was like for these soldiers when they completed their tour of duty. The movie only gives hints and I think it would’ve been stronger if it had gone into more detail.
I agree with the lot of ye. After reading several books and in-depth articles on Afghanistan (the place fascinates me), I’ve got no better sense of what the right course is for the war than anyone else. My main takeaway has been that this is a place whose cultures, traditions and general ideologies are utterly and completely foreign to us. Not just different, but wholly foreign. A Western military presence there feels both very necessary and in the long term completely futile, and also ethically murky. I’m definitely interested in seeing the documentary.
It sounds like Wells feels very passionately about what the right course of action is, and is frustrated that this opportunity to present that to people who are focused on Afghanistan for two hours isn’t giving his point of view. You know what? You want your point of view shared on film? Make your own documentary. If, however, you are a purported film critic, then honestly assess what the filmmaker has done and make an effort to understand why he made those choices.
Personally, I think that anyone who *knows* what the wisest course for the U.S. is in Afghanistan is most likely is being short-sighted and tunnel-visioned. The more I’ve learned, the less sure I’ve become about any of it. The one thing I do know, is that this war is hell for those fighting it, and any efforts to understand and appreciate their sacrifice are to be commended.
“I think that anyone who *knows* what the wisest course for the U.S. is in Afghanistan is most likely is being short-sighted and tunnel-visioned.”
I tend to agree, but strong opinions make for strong blogs and strong AM talk radio.