5/1/2023 0 Comments Real war documentary![]() ![]() Ultimately, Junger believes, Korengal will foster understanding. But like the experience it documents, Korengal is also challenging and complicated. The platoon's story is told in a simple, direct way. Such a close examination of soldiers in combat is evocative, offering the audience an immersive, riveting, and, at times, meditative window into a usually unseen world. One soldier admits he's experienced racism within the platoon, but insists he would give his life for anyone, including the ones he believes have acted in a racist manner. But before the deployment ends, a soldier smashes the guitar to pieces for fun. The soldiers pretend to be in friendship with the local elder council, yet the platoon captain describes the elders as a "bunch of liars." In a rare moment of tranquility in the film, a soldier strums "Dust in the Wind" on an acoustic guitar. Another soldier mourns having to do terrible things, yet says, if given the chance, he would make the same choice again. I'm trying to report all of that moral complexity, trying to report it honestly, and not censor it."Īn honest look at a complex situation reveals an experience constructed as a series of paradoxical moments: The soldiers describe combat as an experience other people "can't understand," yet they often reflect about not understanding their own combat experience and the love/hate cycle it provokes. And they get into combat, and they love it. They join the Army because they want to know what combat is like. "A lot of soldiers play ‘war' when they're little boys. "I put that in to counterbalance the other things that are true," Junger points out. The longest single sound byte is Brendan talking about the tragedy of war and what it does to a person morally. He wasn't religious and he was worried about it. "And," Junger explains, "Brendan didn't even believe in God. Brendan O'Byrne, a soldier interviewed in the film, is not religious, yet he worries that he'll have to explain his actions to God someday. ![]() Junger uses the language of paradox to explore the question, as soldiers' actions are often at odds with their beliefs. I wish I could go back tomorrow.' That has to be explained." "I start with a sound byte of a soldier saying, ‘I miss it. "I feel like the film will help civilians confront some of those uncomfortable truths that they'd rather think are not true," Junger maintains. And that makes civilians uncomfortable."įor a filmmaker, evoking discomfort can be a good thing. They look like grade-school kids in a water balloon fight. They're just whooping it up during a firefight. "On one hand, you can see in one bit of footage how much fun they're having. "There are unpleasant truths about war," he notes. Two wars are presented: The war on the ground, and soldiers at war with themselves. Junger shapes a film where physical conflict begets internal conflict. So you have people with PTSD interviewing other people with PTSD." All of us, including the two filmmakers, had a pretty good case of PTSD. There were interviews where everyone was crying. ![]() "The soldiers talked about their feelings because their feelings were extremely powerful. "We did the interviews two months after the deployment ended," Junger explains. The entire content of the film is singularly devoted to the soldiers' perspectives. No one discusses at length the moral implications of war-although the moral complexities are implicit-or why they're willing to fight in it. No one in the movie talks politics, though a soldier's presence is inherently political. Shot in vérité and as a series of post-deployment interviews, it invites the audience to experience empathy for a role people have played for thousands of years: The Combat Soldier. Korengal delivers on its promise to show us what war feels like. And that was why we used interviews where we asked the soldiers, How does fear work? What does courage mean? Why do you miss the war?" We really wanted to make a film that strove to understand that experience conceptually. With Korengal, we didn't feel constrained like that. It's unfiltered, untainted by a musical score or narration. "You have something close to the experience of combat. "We saw Restrepo as an experiential movie," he says. Korengal is Junger's second feature documentary made from this footage. Two journalists-Junger and the late photojournalist Tim Hetherington-embedded with a platoon and captured 150 hours of combat footage in the Korengal Valley of Eastern Afghanistan from May 2007 to July 2008. Korengalis Sebastian Junger's follow-up feature documentary to the 2010 Oscar-nominated Restrepo. ![]()
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