Restrepo vs. Armadillo: War Documentaries and [Un]Realism

For the past two years or so, I’ve been on a fairly substantial documentary film kick – thanks in large part to Hulu and Netflix, dissatisfaction with traditional news media, a general interest in the real (or more real). My craving, though, has escalated within the past six months, as these films often directly address many of the issues we confront in school – and, frankly, I don’t like just reading about these ideas. Who does, really, when there’s a real world to learn from?

So, this week, in preparation for a summer job on film, I watched two documentaries that I think are worth considering alongside each other. They directly confront issues surrounding foreign policy, imperialism, representation [of atrocity], military action, but in starkly different ways. The first is Restrepo, directed by the late Tim Hetherington, and the second is Armadillo, a Danish film directed by Janus Metz…

Restrepo follows an American platoon over fifteen months in the Korengal Valley in Afghanistan, nicknamed by soldiers “The Valley of Death” because of its high mortality rate and rough living conditions. The ongoing mission is to rid Taliban insurgents and their sympathizers from the area to enable a road to be constructed for the locals – which requires pushing deep into what looks like unspoiled wilderness and establishing a concrete presence in enemy territory. Central to the narrative is the death of Juan “Doc” Restrepo, a soldier who was killed and for whom the newly-constructed advanced outpost “Restrepo” is named. The outpost is a game-changer for the American troops.

Gunfight and Airstrike in Korengal Valley, by the US Army

This is not an easy film to watch. It shocks and awes. We see the difficulties in communicating with local civilians who fear oppression from the Taliban, but also fear retribution for aiding foreign forces. We see damage done to innocent civilians, and attempts to rationalize the decisions directly responsible. The combat deaths of our own soldiers. The crushing blows soldiers are dealt when their friends are killed, and the requirement to keep fighting in that moment to protect self and others. The inadequacy of our psychological support systems at home and abroad to help traumatized soldiers.

The strength of this film is, unsurprisingly, its attention to vulnerability. That’s accomplished in two ways: first, one-on-one interviews with the soldiers in the platoon divorce them from the intensity of the Valley – and social pressure – that encourages (requires?) them to quell their emotional response. We see their fear and sadness in an unmediated way. The disconnect between their battlefield selves and their interview selves is jarring.

Second, the camera work within the Valley itself feels authentic (a loaded word, I know, but go with it). The lenses are frequently covered in dust and smears of sweat and grease and mud, many of the shots are taken by a man running with the soldiers, the sounds are frequently rough, muffled, unmediated. As Susan Sontag tells us in Regarding the Pain of Others, war is not supposed to look pristine or polished in representational media. It certainly doesn’t here:

Armadillo is a horse of a very different color. Of course, there are many commonalities: Armadillo too follows a platoon in Afghanistan for a period of several months in a very dangerous area in the Helmand Province. We too bear witness to the deaths and injuries of those soldiers, the damage done to innocent citizens, the difficulties in communicating with locals who are stuck in a lose-lose middle ground between Taliban and foreign soldier.

Afghan Troops Set Up Security on a Road as the Sun Sets in Helmand, by the UK Ministry of Defence

Armadillo, though, does not traffic in the same  kind of emotional candor or proximity as Restrepo. We see no private interviews with any soldiers; the soldiers do not break the fourth wall to engage in a candid dialogue with the filmmakers (and, by proxy, the audience). Though we catch glimpses of their lives beyond the adrenaline fog of the battlefield – in Denmark, with their families – we never see them surmount the pressures of those surroundings. Whatever emotions they express are completely mediated by place and the expectations that those places confer upon soldiers, and the places that we are invited to weigh heavily. They choke expression.

We’re distanced from the narrative aesthetically, too. Where Restrepo was gritty and raw in its representation of life in the Korengal Valley, Armadillo offers a slicker vision. The camera shots are steadier, no dirt obscures the lenses, noises and speech sound as if they were retouched and enhanced in post-production (and perhaps they were). To put it bluntly, it looks, sounds, feels like a scripted movie.

This isn’t to suggest that Restrepo is more realistic or authentic, and thus better, than Armadillo. The two accomplish different goals, both valuable and germane in considering the modern experience of war and its fallout.

The former documentary breaks down barriers between the audience and ongoing conflicts in Afghanistan. “This is what war looks like,” it says, “and this is how soldiers truly react to their trauma.” For whatever my personal experience is worth, I had a visceral reaction to what Restrepo showed me. We’re meant to.

The latter film, however, suggests that modern war and modern life have become more simulated, both for civilian and, perhaps, for soldier. We naturally distance ourselves from traumatic reality by understanding it as a simulation, a game, a performance (the 9/11 attacks were “just like a movie” for so many of us). And living life as spectator is only more prevalent these days, especially where war is concerned. We experience war through camera lenses. We are not asked to change our behavior, to make sacrifices. We do not encounter tangible consequences that suggest that war is happening somewhere or anywhere.

And acts of war are increasingly simulated. Drone warfare enables soldiers within the United States, or any other friendly nation, to control weapons anywhere else in the world, with nary an encounter with the enemy beyond what can be shown on a screen. This isn’t to disparage the soldiers who do that, nor those who travel to dangerous places and make sacrifices I can’t begin to imagine. But there are elements of modern warfare that seem like they belong more in a science fiction novel than in our present reality.

That’s what we see in Armadillo. War as simulation, as an encounter that is demanding of soldiers and their families and friends but distant to most civilians, an encounter that a participant or spectator can cope with by imagining that it is unreal. The most haunting moment of the film, reproduced in the trailer below, features a wounded, shell-shocked soldier being treated on the battlefield (watch the whole thing, but look for him at 1:27 – if there’s a video version of punctum a la Barthes, that’s it… his eyes are so piercing and haunting). Though we do peel back the curtain to see something real, this soldier is somehow not present. We, the audience, may feel as if we are in the Helmand Province, but where exactly are we?

In considering these two films in conversation, I wonder how we will continue to experience and represent war, and where our civilian, moral duty lies. Do we have an obligation to try to comprehend the psychological toll of war on the soldier, or what battles are really like – and if so, how do we accomplish that? Will we continue sliding into spectacular warfare and trauma understood only at arm’s length, rendering ourselves less able to – or potentially less obligated to – regard the pain of others?

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• Afghanistan
• Armadillo
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• Restrepo
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