3-14-08, 9:27 am
Original source: Morning Star
Movie Review: Redacted Directed by Brian de Palma
Following in the wake of the US invasion of Iraq, there have been some notable critical films - Robert Redford's Lions for Lambs, Paul Haggis's In The Valley of Elah and Nick Broomfield's Battle for Haditha.
Now comes a controversial contribution from maverick movie-maker Brian de Palma. Redacted challenges the way in which the US media has manipulated the war on behalf of the military-industrial complex.
But then, what would you expect from the writer-director who makes no pretence that he's inspired by the political sympathies and editing techniques of the films of Eisenstein and Hitchcock?
In short, they are designed to confront, even to the extent of alienating their audience in the manner of Brecht.
Redacted isn't so much a movie as a series of scenarios designed to assault audience assumptions.
Thus the odd title. It's a reference to the practice of the US censoring communications from the front, insisting on what they called 'embedded journalists' toeing the official line.
The authorities forgot that, apart from the investigations of independent journalists, their own troops were employing camera phones and webcams to illustrate the conflict.
De Palma has incorporated such stylistic sources in a film designed to mimic the mechanisms of the amateur film-makers, documentarists and computer bloggers.
Essentially, it's based upon a war crime in Mahmudiyah, which included a gang of US marines raping, killing and burning 14-year-old Abeer Qasim Hamza before they murdered her family.
The film won the prestigious Silver Bear at the Venice film festival and the eternal enmity of the US establishment, epitomised by Michael Medved, who said: 'It could be the worst movie I've ever seen.'
Thus, it was only viewed by some 3,000 people in 15 US theatres and was subsequently withdrawn from circulation because they could claim that it bombed at the box office.
Well, while I can't agree with Medved, it's quite clear why such a film failed. Apart from the fact that it's an angry rejection of the immorality of the war, it lacks De Palma's usual cinematic confections.
Here, there is no aping the famous Odessa step scenes in Battleship Potemkin in the Untouchables or indulging in the cocaine-fuelled rants of Scarface. It's simply a series of stills of abused Iraqi bodies.
The latter were also redacted - the faces of victims, including children, obliterated by marker pens in the style of the news censors. Nor does he tell us if the soldiers were convicted.
But then, he does maintain that it's a metaphor for war, including crimes elsewhere. He was last accused of such sympathy for the enemy with a similar scenario in Casualties of War.
De Palma does employ the standard Hollywood format simply to contradict it.
Thus, he has the stereotypical dog soldiers, including a clever clogs (Kel O'Neil), a couple of creeps (Daniel Stewart Sherman, Patrick Carrol) and a grunt with Hollywood aspirations (Izzy Diaz).
It's the latter who has recorded his mates as they express their hatred against the 'rag heads' - 'whacking Iraqis is like stomping cockroaches' - as they plan their premeditated war crime.
This is supported by a fictionalised French documentary film and some supposed footage from Al Jazeera, including the capture and brutal beheading of the man with the movie camera.
Notably, De Palma didn't sensationalise the events as he has been accused of doing throughout his career, but, unlike Broomfield's film, his soldiers actually do look like they're reading their lines.
Thus, it ultimately proves at odds with his claims to cinema-verite. It might not satisfy all the critics, but it certainly captures the horror of the war and the anger felt by those who fell for the dodgy dossiers.
Brian de Palma should be congratulated, not vilified.
From Morning Star
