Reply #12: Agreed - - RIP [View All]

[Baclava]

How far would you go for a work of art? Directors Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger went all the way to a remote part of Afghanistan to bring us their powerful documentary "Restrepo." And when they got there, all they did was spend ten months in the middle of some of the most intense fighting in the war. When they were shot at, when they were blown up by a roadside bomb, they didn't flinch. Even more impressively, they kept the cameras rolling.

This seems like an astonishing sacrifice, but I imagine Hetherington and Junger don't look at it that way. They would probably argue that they made no sacrifice greater than that of their subjects, the men of U.S. Outpost Restrepo, and they who don't view what they're doing as a sacrifice either. For the soldiers stationed at Restrepo, a tiny 15-man encampment on top of a hill in the middle of intimidating Korengal Valley, their work in Afghanistan is exactly that: a job. A dangerous job, but a job nonetheless.

Hetherington and Junger's film makes no attempt to justify or contextualize the activities at Restrepo, when you're in taking fire and mortars, justification and context don't matter very much. Their approach brings the War in Afghanistan into terrifying clarity for those of us fortunate enough to previously know it only as a talking point on news programs.

"Restrepo" makes us reconsider not only the war in Afghanistan, but movie violence in general. It's hard to look at gunfights onscreen the same way after you've seen it. In fiction movies, we never see bullets, just muzzle flashes and men falling over. Most times, there isn't even any blood. "Restrepo" shows us the reality: when you are in a firefight, you can actually see bullets flying at you, red hot lead slicing through the sky like flying razors. I will never forget that image as long as I live.

http://www.ifc.com/news/2011/02/tim-hetherington-and-sebastian.php