Restrepo posts

Q. How did you prepare for the role [of a former P.O.W. turned war hero who might also be an undercover jihadist in Showtime's “Homeland”]?

A. I investigated post-traumatic stress disorder. I’ve been to a unit where people are suffering from it, and I read a lot of literature. I looked at footage of soldiers in the combat zone. I found “Restrepo” to be unbelievably useful.

--Actor Damian Lewis (“Band of Brothers”) in the Q&A “A World War II Soldier Enters the Post-Iraq Age,” in the Sunday New York Times

“Maybe Misrata wasn’t worth dying for—surely that thought must have crossed your mind in those last moments—but what about all the Misratas of the world? What about Liberia and Darfur and Sri Lanka and all those terrible, ugly stories that you brought such humanity to? That you helped bring the world’s attention to?

”After the war in Liberia you rented a house in the capital and lived there for years. Years. Who does that? No one I know except you, my dear friend. That’s part of Misrata, too. That’s also part of what you died for: the decision to live a life that was thrown open to all the beauty and misery and ugliness and joy in the world. Before this last trip you told me that you wanted to make a film about the relationship between young men and violence. You had this idea that young men in combat act in ways that emulate images they’ve seen—movies, photographs—of other men in other wars, other battles. You had this idea of a feedback loop between the world of images and the world of men that continually reinforced and altered itself as one war inevitably replaced another in the long tragic grind of human affairs.

“That was a fine idea, Tim—one of your very best. It was an idea that our world very much needs to understand. I don’t know if it was worth dying for—what is?—but it was certainly an idea worth devoting one’s life to. Which is what you did. What a vision you had, my friend. What a goddamned terrible, beautiful vision of things.”

--Sebastian Junger: “Sebastian Junger Remembers Tim Hetherington,” Vanity Fair.

Read the whole thing. Please.

“I think it’s safe for me to say that what Tim was trying to do by going to war was to look into the souls of men, whose truths are perhaps more exposed in that environment than in any other—and to show the rest of us what he saw. He gave us a legacy in the important work he left behind, and, for those of us who had the honor to know Tim as a friend, a cherished memory of a man whose own soul was very intact.”

--Jon Lee Anderson in his post, “Remembering Tim Hetherington,” about the co-director of “Restrepo,” on The New Yorker site. The site has also posted a slideshow of Hetherington's photography.

I just heard the news about Tim Hetherington.

A year ago I saw him at the Harvard Exit in Seattle, tall and thin and British, a photojournalist mostly, standing next to Sebastian Junger, short and broad and American, an author mostly, and his co-director on the documentary we'd all just watched: “Restrepo.” Both calmly answered questions from the partisan Seattle International Film Festival crowd about the politics of war and the politics of documentary. A few in the crowd, like Jeff Wells later, wanted “Restrepo” to be more political: the how and the why we're in Afghanistan. They felt “Restrepo” somehow lacked. I was stunned. I was stunned by the stupidity of the questions and by the power of the film. I've urged it on everyone since. I doubt there's a movie I mentioned more in the last year. I was a broken record.

Samples:

• I posted my “Restrepo” review at the end of May 2010. 
• From early June: Me, I've only been seeing SIFF (Seattle International Film Festival) movies the past two weeks. Thus far? “Restrepo.” Repeat: “Restrepo.”
• In late June, I talked about how it was the best of SIFF.
• Still in June, in a lengthy post, I slammed Jeff Wells for his take on “Restrepo,” and, in the process, sharpened my own.
• In early July: a link to a New York Times Q&A with Junger.
• From August: There are still good movies to see, people. Restrepo is still playing in 44 theaters, and two new docs, “The Tillman Story” and “A Film Unfinished,” just opened in NY and LA. One hopes they go wider.
• From September: Have you seen 'Restrepo'? DO! It's playing in 37 theaters around the  U.S., has grossed $1.2 million, and is one of the best movies of the year.
• From October: Somebody, in this case “The Independent,” likes “Restrepo,” the Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington documentary about a platoon in Afghanistan in 2007-08, as much as I did. Hell, they go further. They ask: Is it the greatest war movie ever made?
• From January 2011: Michael Cieply writes of the strong slate of documentaries in 2010 without once mentioning the best of the lot: “Restrepo.”
• More from January: The Producers Guild of America announces its 2010 nominees. Six documentaries and no “Restrepo.” The world gets dumber by the day.
  
• Even more from January: I celebrated “Restrepo”'s Oscar nomination.
• In February, I finally get around to posting my list of the top 10 movies of 2010. “Restrepo”? No. 2.
• From Live-blogging the Oscars: The main one I want to win apparently has no shot: “Restrepo.” Maybe someday people will know.

Maybe someday they will.

Rest in peace, Mr. Hetherington. Emphasis on peace.

Junger, left, and Hetherington during the filming of “Restrepo”

1:50 PM, PST: Patricia and I were going to be hosting an Oscar party tonight but poor Patricia came down with the crud and we thought better to keep it mellow and not infect anyone. So instead of a party it'll be just P and me and a cat named Jellybean (a rejected Lobo B-side, I believe).

But their loss is your gain. Or their gain is your loss. I.e., I'll be liveblogging the Oscars.

In the meantime my votes: Who I'd choose if I could ch-ch-choose. (That's a “Simpsons” reference, not a “King's Speech” reference.) This is want-to-win, not think-will-win. Off the top of my head. Or heart:

• Picture: “True Grit”
• Director: Darren Aronofsky, “Black Swan”
• Actor: Jesse Eisenberg, “The Social Network”
• Actress: Natalie Portman, “Black Swan”
• Supporting Actor: John Hawkes, “Winter's Bone”
• Supporting Actress: Melissa Leo, “The Fighter”
• Original Screenplay: Christopher Nolan, “Inception”
• Adapted Screenplay: Aaron Sorkin, “The Social Network”
• Animated Feature Film: “Toy Story 3”
• Art Direction: “Inception”
• Cinematography: “True Grit”
• Costume Design: “Alice in Wonderland”
• Documentary: “Restrepo”!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
• Film Editing: Andrew Weisblum, “Black Swan”
• Foreign Language Film: N/A. I've only seen “Biutiful” and was disappointed.
• Makeup: N/A. Haven't seen anyof these.
• Original Score: Hans Zimmer, “Inception”
• Original Song: Randy Newman, “We Belong Together”
• Sound Editing/Mixing: What do I know about these categories? Less than I know about the others.
• Visual Effects: “Inception”

A lot of these choices are razor-thin. “True Grit” barely over “The Social Network.” Eisenberg barely over Bridges. Aronofsky and Portman because they get you in the head of the character. It's Dostoevsky-type stuff. 

The main one I want to win apparently has no shot: “Restrepo.” Maybe someday people will know.

See you in a bit.

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3:30 PM: Some Oscar linkage before the broadcast:

• John Lopez of Vanity Fair with a funny piece: “The Complete Procrastinators' Guide to Oscar voting.” Best Foriegn Language film made me laugh the hardest. In my head. It wasn't LOL.
• The great baseball writer Roger Angell talks about the Oscars. Big surprise, he does it well.
• If you're still filling out your ballot, Richard Brody of The New Yorker can help.
• Nathaniel Rogers over at Film Experience is already live-blogging the red carpet.

Talk of the town.

4:20 PM: Question: How come Nathaniel hasn't mentioned Mila Kunis' outfit yet? She's definitely living up to her Black Swan character in that thing. She's even handling Ryan Seacrest well. On the red carpet he asks, “How did you ge that role?” Doesn't it sound like he's asking: “How did YOU get that role?” I barely see the dude but every time it's nails-on-a-chalkboard.

I'm trying to make up for the lack of females here by being catty during the red carpet for Patricia:

“Where did Cate Blanchett get that dress? From Rachel on 'Glee'?”

I know. Needs work.

From Patricia: “What's up with all these strapless gowns? I'm not a fan of strapless gowns. For the last five years there's been nothing but strapless gowns.”

Patricia on Jennifer Lawrence: “She looks gorgeous. And that is a beatiful dress. And it has straps on it!”

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4:55 PM: Does Sandra Bullock look like she's had some recent work done? She looks tight and unhappy. P not a fan of the red dress, either. Strapless.

E! broadcasters: “Let's talk about Celine Deon.” Patricia: “Why?”

And there's Jeff Bridges. He'd be back anyway to present best actress but finds himself nominated again. Is that like picking up a spare after a strike? Do you get more points in the final tally this way?

Hey, how many other Oscar livebloggers give you bowling metaphors during the red carpet?

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5:05 PM: WTF? I thought the show started at 5:00 not 5:30. Oh, man. See you in a half hour.

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5:53 PM: Odd opening, no? It's nice to see the lines of “Winter's Bone” side by side with the lines of such blockbusters as “Toy Story 3” and “Inception”; but Anne Hathaway (AH) and James Franco (JF) going through the year's best picture nominees seemed much ado about not much. (Though I loved her wink at Colin Firth's Duke of York.) And what's with the “Back to the Future” homage? Because AH and JF are the future of movies? I'm confused.

Having the moms and grandmoms stand up was cute. But then they begin with “Gone with the Wind”? “Let's celebrate the best of this year ... by looking back 72 years.”

First award: Art Direction. Patricia wanted “Inception.” Instead: “Alice in Wonderland.” 

Second award: Cinematography. I wanted “True Grit.” Instead: “Inception.” Wally Pfister: “Thank you... for all the respect you've shown to all the cinematographers.” Except, of course, Roger Deakins.

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6:00 PM: OK, I'm fine with Kirk Douglas. But one should never milk it when one is holding the winning envelope. Just say the name. And one should get offstage when the winner (here: Melissa Leo) gets on it. Though.... Holy crap! She just swore on international television. Fun! She gives one of the oddest acceptance speeches but looks great.

Is anything going right here? Justin T. and Mila K. have nothing going on. Weak back-and-forth. iPhone apps jokes. Blech.

The best line so far is from the winner of the short animated film. “Our picture is about a creature no one pays attention to, so this award is wonderfully ironic.”

Animated feature? Pixar. “Toy Story 3.” I wonder if Vegas would even accept money on that bet.

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6:22 PM: AH with a story about the first Academy Awards, which leads to an intro of ... Josh Brolin and Javier Bardem? I am SOOOOO confused.

Adapted Screenplay: Should be Sorkin. And it's Sorkin. Hugs for and from Aranofsky and Eisenberg. Let's see how articulate he is. Hey, shout-out to Paddy Chayefsky! Cool. “I wrote this movie but Darren Aronofsky made this movie.” Classy. “This movie is going to be a source of pride for me for the rest of my life.” Classy again.

Now original screenplay. Getting the writers out of the way early, apparently.

And it's David Seidler for “King's Speech.” Christopher Hitchens is throwing a fit somewhere but screw him. I'm happy for this guy ... who can't find the mic. “The writer's speech, this is terrifying. [pause] My father always said to me I would be a late bloomer.” Great line. Dude has something of Norman Mailer about him, doesn't he? He's been through battles.

Drag.

6:50 PM: BTW, family and friends: P is already back in the bedroom, coughing and achey. Poor thing. Just me out here alone in the living room. Well, “alone.” I've got a beer.

Another odd bit: AH singing a short, angry song about Hugh Jackman and JF showing up in drag. Plus a Charlie Sheen joke. Is it me or does this feel like the worst Oscar show ever?

Foreign language film. Hey, Denmark in the house!

Best supporting actor. Why Reese Witherspoon as presenter? Who won supporting actress last year? (Psst: Monique.) This category is stacked. First time I've applauded tonight: for John Hawkes. But I'm glad with Christian Bale winning—if only so the world can hear his British accent. “Bloody hell.” “Mate.” Overall, a weak acceptance speech for him. He blew it all at the Golden Globes.

Apologies. Ducked out. Had to get P advil and water and search for a thermometer. Has anyone seen it? She said she left it on the bedside table.

So I've come back to a tribute to... sound? Music? The sound of music? Yes. Best original score. I've heard Desplat will win for “TKS.” But “TSN” was quite good, too. As was “I.” And it goes to “TSN.”

Now it's sound, mixing, for .. “Inception.” Hey, nice looking sound engineer! Lora Hirschberg. Waving to the back row.

Now sound editing. Also “Inception.” That happens often, doesn't it? The sound awards going hand in hand? How often? Anyone know?

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7:30 PM: Best line of the night so far: Catie Blanchett's “Gross” for the “Wolfman” clip. And she didn't even have to watch the entire movie. As expected, it wins best makeup. Expertise in the service of mediocrity.

Costume design? I've heard “Alice.” And it's ... “Alice.”

I like Jake G's message about seeing short films throughout the year because it might help you with your Oscar ballot.

But it's the “best live-action short” guy with the Sideshow Bob haircut, Luke Matheny, who steals the show. He wins for “God of Love” and says the following with genuine enthusiasm and meaning:

I should've gotten a haircut. [crowd laughs] Hey, everybody. Thanks to the Academy for this amazing honor, I need to salute my fellow nominees ... I invite the world to check out these films, they can be found on iTunes, you're gonna love 'em ... Finally [I'd like to thank] my mother, who did craft services for the film [crowd laughs], my dad, the state of Delaware, and last but not least, my brilliant composer and love of my life: Sasha Gordon, you're my dream come true.

Now documentary feature. Will we get to see Banksy? Will we hear about the global financial meltdown? We'll hear about the global financial meltdown. “Inside Job” wins.

Now a standing ovation for Billy Crystal. Is that a sign of how badly things are going tonight? Come back, Billy! Come back!

Visual effects. “Inception”? “Inception.”

Film editing. This is a big one. Could be a sign of best picture. And it's ... hey! “The Social Network”! Fingers crossed, babies.

Here's our tally thus far: “inception”: 4; “The Social Network”: 3; “The Fighter”: 2; “The King's Speech”: 1

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7:50 PM: Original song. Who cares? I care! Randy Newman wins! Plus his speech is great. He and Luke Matheny in a competition for best accepatance speech thus far.

Final four. Could “The Social Network” pull it out? The tension is ... ehh. I guess it'd be nice but I'm not losing sleep.

But why bring out Hilary Swank simply to introduce Katherine Bigelow? Why waste the time? Hollywood, I dunna understand thee.

Best director: C'mon, Fincher! Fincher Fincher Fincher. And it's ... Tom Hooblah! As expected. So odd. BAFTA gave the award to the American, Fincher, for “The Social Network,” and we give it to the Brit, Hooper, for “The King's Speech.” Grass is greener, I guess. Except they're right this time. Our grass is greener.

Jeff Bridges suddenly seems so at home on the Oscar stage, doesn't he? He fills it.

My god, Natalie Portman looks loverly. And they chose a great clip for her. And they chose her.

Now Sandra Bullock with best actor. Do we like these personal intros? I guess we do. Sandra is particularly good with Jeff Bridges and Colin Firth. And it's Colin Firth. “I have a feelng my career has just peaked.” Classic Brit line. And then the threat of the dance moves. Post-speech commentary. Me: “Very British.” Patricia (back from the dead): “Sooooo cute.

So now it's all pretty much a foregone, in'it? The only hope was Fincher, with director, but Hooper got director, so ”TKS“ will get picture, too. As it does. Just after a great intro by Steven Spielberg, reminding everyone, particularly the ”losers,“ of the good company they keep:

In a moment, one of the 10 movies will join a list that includes ”On the Waterfront,“ ”Midnight Cowboy,“ ”The Godfather“ and ”The Deer Hunter.“ The other nine will join a list that includes ”The Grapes of Wrath,“ ”Citizen Kane,“ ”The Graduate“ and ”Raging Bull.“ Either way, congratulations, you're in very good company.

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So (with apologies to Alvy Singer) here's my awards for the awards show:

• Best dressed (female): Mila Kunis
• Best dressed (female again: because who cares about best-dressed males?): Natalie Portman
• Best woman who stunned me with her beauty all over again: Halle Berry
• Best acceptance speech: Firth, Sorkin, and Newman were all good, but I give it to the kid: Luke Matheny
• Best intro: Steven Spielberg
• Biggest surprise: Probably Melissa Leo's f-bomb. There weren't many surprises tonight. Or laughs.

The show was an odd mix of youthful hosts, giving it a go but not being particularly funny, and constant looks back to ”Gone with the Wind“ and ”sound“ and ”Bob Hope“ for no reason I could fathom. Rather than focusing on this year, it kept darting back 70, 80 years, to apparently remind everyone of the glorious history of the movies. Yet when it had a chance to honor that glorious history of movies now, with Coppola and Godard, it did so off-stage. Almost every move was wrong: from the Hugh Jackass song, to the ”mashup" of faux musicals, to the iPhone app. What a waste. Bring back the comedians. Give us new producers. Something.

On the plus side, we found the thermometer.

The movie year increasingly reminds me of the old video game “Space Invaders.” In the beginning, the invaders drop down intermittently and at a snail's pace—easy pickings—but as the game progresses they come fast and furious until you can't keep up, and then ... Blam! Game over.

That's my movie year. It starts out slowly, luxuriously, with huge gaps between one good film (“The Ghost Writer”) and another (“Un Prophete”). The dashed hopes of spring (“Kick Ass”) eventually give way to the heat of summer blockbusters (“Toy Story 3”; “Inception”). In fall, there's September pretenders (“The American”), October surprises (“The Social Network”), but before you know it you're inundated (“Black Fair Rabbit Fighter Job Speech Grit”) until ... Blam! Game over.

Long way of sayng I should've posted this sooner but kept trying to pick up all those I missed. Then I looked around and it was February and I knew I had to go with what I've got.

This is what I've got.

10. “Inside Job” is the first of three documentaries in my Top 10. It's the least powerful but probably the most necessary since it goes into the whys and hows of the global financial meltdown, which most of us, including especially me, don't quite understand yet. The talking heads we want (Henry Paulson; Larry Summers) aren't talking, of course, but enough middle-management types, flattered to be asked, are. My favorite? Little Freddy Mishkin, tanned and suited up, who hems and haws through a series of questions, including one on a 2006 independent study he co-authored, for $125,000, for the Icelandic Chamber of Commerce. He called it “Financial Stability in Iceland.” This was just before the Icelandic economy collapsed disastrously. So now in his CV it's called “Financial Instability in Iceland.” When questioned on the switch, he responds with his usual grace: “Well, I don't know, if, whatever it is, is, the, uh, the thing—if it's a typo, there's a typo.” Review excerpt:

Most of us struggle to find something we’re good at, and for which we can get paid, and, if we’re lucky, we do this thing for 40 to 50 years until we can hopefully retire with a bit of comfort. And while we’re doing this thing, we’re putting our money, bit by bit, into a room, which is where other people, bit by bit, are putting their money, too. So there’s a huge pile of money in this room. Now there’s another group of people who are attracted to this room for the pile of money. They believe they can take that pile of money, our money, and turn it into a bigger pile of money, a lot of which will be their money. But while they’re doing this magic act, they don’t want anyone to watch. Because we can trust them. Because they are self-regulating. Because what could possibly go wrong?

9. I had problems with “The Ghostwriter,” particularly the ending, in which the Ghost (Ewan McGregor) figures it all out then gives it all up to his enemies, the faux-Bush administration, and dies two seconds later. It's as if U.S. government agencies are quick, coordinated and supersmart rather than the slow, clumsy battleships we know them to be. So I never thought this movie would make my top 10. It's the weight of it that finally won me over. It's the images that stayed in my head: the lone SUV, alarm blaring, on the ferry; McGregor next to the full-paned window revealing the dunes outside—making it appear he's half in the room and half out; the unsexy sex scenes; the investigation through GPS; the cold and the gray and the paranoia of it all. For all the problems with story, the feel of it was created by a true artist. Review excerpt:

In the 1970s, and in political thrillers such as “Three Days of the Condor,” the CIA was viewed as the automatic villain of the left for immorally, conspiratorially involving itself in everything. In the 2000s, the CIA was viewed as the automatic villain of the right for immorally, conspiratorially involving itself in nothing. Bushies outed CIA agents. That’s how crazy things got. In “The Ghostwriter,” the CIA, FBI and the faux-Bush administration all work together in super-smart, super-efficient fashion. As soon as perceived enemies appear they are struck down. One ponders the sad history of this past decade, particularly before and after 9/11, and thinks: Right.

8. There are two big reasons why “Black Swan” is on my list. Half an hour after watching it, I still had to remind myself to “breathe” because I'd barely breathed at all during the last half hour of the film. And I'd barely breathed during the last half hour of the film because director Darren Aronofsky, and star Natalie Portman, get you into the head of the main character, Nina, as well as Dostoevsky gets you into the head of Raskolnikov in “Crime and Punishment.” That's the realm of novels not movies. But Aronofsky is making it the realm of movies. Review excerpt:

No, Nina is hardly innocent. She’s covetous. Early in the film, after Beth Macintyre (Winona Ryder) trashes her dressing room when she learns she’s been summarily dismissed as prima ballerina of their New York ballet company, Nina sneaks in and sits at the vanity mirror and looks at herself and tries out Beth’s lipstick; then she pockets Beth’s lipstick. It seems a minor thing. Until later in the film when Beth is in the hospital and Nina brings out all the things, including diamond earrings, that Nina stole from her over the years. She’s been coveting the role of prima ballerina for years, and now it’s hers, but she can only see versions of herself ready to take it away again. She assumes the world is like her—we all do—and that’s why she’s paranoid. She knows how awful the desire to take.

7. I still think about it sometimes. What if the creators of “Toy Story 3” had not given us their deus ex machina at the junkyard and allowed the toys, our favorite cinemantic toys, to be pulled into the furnace? What if we had all watched the beloved face of Woody (Tom Hanks) melt away as if he were the Gestapo officer in “Raiders of the Lost Ark”? How much stronger the lesson would've been about our wasteful, throwaway culture. Of course: the howls of protest that would've emerged; the billions of dollars that wouldn't have been made. Instead we got our happy ending. Andy's life goes on but the toys are eternal. They will never die. It's a bit of a lie, but an argument can still be made that the “Toy Story” series is still the greatest trilogy Hollywood has ever produced. Each film builds on, and deepens, the previous one. Review excerpt:

Can we watch these movies and not think about ourselves? What the toys go through is essentially what we will all go through. First we’re useful; then we’re not; then we’re taken to a home where we may be abused. We live in a throwaway culture where we’re the last thing thrown away. “Toy Story 3” doesn’t want us to think about this too much, of course, so it gives us its bittersweet ending, where Andy finally, reluctantly, takes his childish things and gives them to Bonnie, shy Bonnie forever hiding behind her mother’s legs, where they will be both safe and useful. In Andy’s reluctance to let go, one sees the reluctance of Pixar itself, which began its empire with Woody and Buzz, and finally has to put away its childish things.

6. There's always a hint of unreality when one leaves a movie theater—it's as if you are waking from a dream—but I felt this tenfold leaving Chris Nolan's “Inception,” a movie which knows all about the connection between movies and dreams. And video games? Our inception team goes several levels into the unconscious of its victim and has to fight its way out of each level before surfacing in our own. Or is it our own? That's not just a question for Leonardo DiCaprio's Cobb at the end of the movie, or for us in the audience watching “Inception”; it's the question in our heads as we walk the streets afterwards. Why is this level the real one? I guess because we're stuck here. Until we aren't. Review excerpt:

There are parallels, certainly, between “Inception” and “Shutter Island,” Leonardo DiCaprio’s previous movie that included a crazy wife who kills herself and the protagonist’s subsequent retreat from reality. But I felt “Inception” more. With “Shutter,” the craziness is isolated in one character. With “Inception,” it spreads. Like an idea. The sanest person in the movie, in fact, may be Mal, just before she kills herself. Once you navigate to the lower dream levels, who is to say that our level, the non-dream level, is the final level? Aren’t we told, all of our lives, that there is another, higher level? Or levels? Who’s to say that reality isn’t the dream from which we need to wake up? The greatest philosophers have said just that. Most of us have felt just that. Nolan is actually tapping into the sense of unreality that reality has. Not bad for a summer blockbuster.

5. “A Film Unfinished” ran from August to November in the States, played in 16 theaters at one point, and grossed $320,000. What a shame. Everyone should see this documentary. It's not just about the Nazis, or the Warsaw Ghetto, or the Holocaust; it's about what propaganda truly means. It's about what evil truly is. The Nazis filmed Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto in the months before its liquidation in 1943. Why? Forty years later, historians realized they actually staged some of those scenes—creating scenes of comfortable and/or rich Jews. Again: Why? To hide what they were doing before they finished doing it? But hide ... from whom? And why film scenes of poor and starving Jews as well? The answer, when it hit me, hit me with a blow that both clarifies and sickens. Review excerpt (and spoilers):

The juxtaposition between rich Jews and poor Jews was justification. The Nazis were documenting a race of people so indifferent to the suffering of others that they didn’t deserve to live. They were documenting an excuse for extermination. In that moment of horror, of revelation, one understands the true meaning of propaganda. It is the powerful blaming the powerless for the crimes of the powerful. The Nazis herded 600,000 Jews into a single zone of Warsaw. They gave them no way to live. They let them starve. They let them die by the hundreds of thousands. Then they staged scenes of Jewish indifference to the suffering of others.

4. “The Social Network” sizzles with intelligence, doesn't it? That's how I still think of it three months later. It begins with a tabletop conversation that Quentin Tarantino would slit his wrists to have written, goes into an all-night, intellectual, misogynistic bender, and doesn't stop. The first half is about the creation of a global phenomenon. What fun! The second half is a love triangle between three boys with Sean Parker playing homme fatal. That's less fun. If the first half is about getting ahead in the Internet age, the second half is about who gets left behind. Sorkin's Zuckberg may not be the true Zuckerberg, but Eduardo is us. Review excerpt:

The final scene, where Zuckerberg finds Erica on Facebook and sends her a friend request, then refreshers her page again and again, is a scene for our time. This thing has been sent out into the ether and we need something to come back. We need to be filled, constantly filled, by the online world, because we're social animals, and socializing online is like the thirsty drinking salt water. We keep doing it and it’s only making us thirstier.

3. “True Grit” is a movie without adjectives or adverbs. It just tells its tale. It's not pushing us in any particular direction, it's just allowing us to ride along. The spectacle, if there is spectacle, is there in the main character, Rooster Cogburn, and in the language, most of it culled from Charles Portis' novel. But within its simple structure, its straightforward storytelling, the Coens make you feel things. You feel the violence of fingers chopped off and the heavy weight of hanged men. You feel the bark of trees and the biting cold of winter. You feel the power of a single gunshot. You feel the damp sweat of horses. Mostly, you feel the Old Testament logic to the world. As Mattie says: “You must pay for everything in this world, one way and another. There is nothing free except the grace of God.” Review excerpt:

Each character surprises. Each has his own code. Cogburn, a U.S. Marshall, robbed banks in his youth, then dismisses it with a shrug and an excuse about never robbing a citizen. Lucky Ned, wearing the nastiest set of teeth in movies, and trading spittle-filled invective with Cogburn while pushing a boot into Mattie’s face, later acts the man of honor. Bargains are made—you do this and I’ll do this—but both Cogburn and Chaney go back on their word. Only Ned Pepper keeps his. This is a rough and absurd world, an Old Testament world, where a laugh is followed by the horror of fingers being chopped off; where an anticipated showdown with a killer becomes the absurdist image of a bear toddling through the woods on a horse. (Should the Coens adapt John Irving? Or is he too New Testament for them?)

2. You know how you hear, say, a political speech that moves you, and then the talking heads on cable news get our their knives and forks and cut it all up? That's how I felt during the Q&A for “Restrepo” after a Friday night showing at the Harvard Exit last May. Both directors were there, Timothy Hetherington and Sebastian Junger, and I was in the back row, still mesmerized by the power of this documentary; then the crowd, Seattle International Film Festival folks, got out their knives and forks. They wanted the doc to say what they wanted it to say. Why didn't it critique our Afghanistan policy? Why didn't it attack the Bush administration? They wanted it narrowed and defined. In the Stephen Daedalus sense, they wanted an improper art that is kinetic and didactic, and Hetherington and Junger merely gave them a painful ode to the fragility of the human condition. They gave us a tragic tale that arrests the mind above desire and loathing. They gave us art. Excerpt:

Finally, there’s Cortez, who’s smiling, always smiling in the post-deployment interviews. One wonders: “Why is this dude smiling?” Then you realize there’s a disconnect between the look on his face and what he’s saying. Near the end, he talks about how he can’t sleep.

I’ve been on four or five different types of sleeping pills and none of them help. That’s how bad the nightmares are. I prefer not to sleep, and not dream about it, than sleep and see the pictures in my head. It’s...pretty bad.

The smile never leaves his face.

1. Am I too much a Francophile for reasons beyond Marion Cotillard? The French are now 2-for-2 on this site. Olivier Assayas's “L'heure d'ete” topped my list last year (posted Dec. 31st!), while, this year, it's Jacque Audiard's “Un Prophete,” the story of Malik, a young, illiterate Muslim who survives prison, first, as assassin, and then as lacky and go-between for the powerful Corsican mob. It's a kind of Malcolm X story: deliverance, and ultimately redemption, through incarceration. Malik is a Muhammadian figure the way Cool Hand Luke is a Christ figure. He enters as the most marginal of figures and leaves a powerful one. But it's the moments of quiet beauty that ultimately recommend the film. Review excerpt:

The arc of its story is brilliant but it’s the details that stay with me, such as Malik’s first plane trip, sandwiched between two bored commuters, but trying to get a glimpse of the sky out the window. He’s heading to Marseilles for a meeting, at Cesar’s behest, with Brahim Lattrache (Slimane Dazi—one of the many amazing faces in this movie), where, again, he’s the distrusted Arab courier, but where his vision of a deer saves his life. Afterwards the deer meat is washed in the Mediterranean, and Lattrache, eyeing him with new respect, is intrigued by this quiet, honest man who straddles cultures. “Let’s get sucked before you go,” he says, but Malik turns him down. “I’d like to stay on the beach,” he says. He wades out into the water. One senses he’s never seen the sea before. Back in the dark of his prison cell, he takes off his shoe, looks inside, upends it. Sand courses through his fingers.

I didn't get up early to watch the Oscar nominations read live at 5:30 PST as I've done in the past. Instead I got up at six, as usual, showered, grabbed coffee, and read them online via IMDb.com. Much more civilized.

My first thought? No surprises. I thought: Nathaniel over at Film Experience had all of these 10 best picture nominees yesterday. Maybe we should just go through Nathaniel instead of AMPAS.

127 Hours

Black Swan

The Fighter

Inception

The Kids Are All Right

The King's Speech

The Social Network

Toy Story 3

True Grit

Winter's Bone

Actor? Great group. No weak spots:

Javier Bardem for Biutiful

Jeff Bridges for True Grit

Jesse Eisenberg for The Social Network

Colin Firth for The King's Speech

James Franco for 127 Hours

Actress? Another strong group, but ...

Annette Bening for The Kids Are All Right

Nicole Kidman for Rabbit Hole

Jennifer Lawrence for Winter's Bone

Natalie Portman for Black Swan

Michelle Williams for Blue Valentine

... no Hailee? She must be in supporting.

Amy Adams for The Fighter

Helena Bonham Carter for The King's Speech

Melissa Leo for The Fighter

Hailee Steinfeld for True Grit

Jacki Weaver for Animal Kingdom

Yep. Too bad. She deserved to be in the lead category. But hardly a surprise. Business as usual, in fact.

Supporting actors? Did they ...

Christian Bale for The Fighter

John Hawkes for Winter's Bone

Jeremy Renner for The Town

Mark Ruffalo for The Kids Are All Right

Geoffrey Rush for The King's Speech

Yes, they did! They included John Hawkes! Alright! No Pierce Brosnan but that would've been a stretch. In fact, is the “Ghost Writer” anywhere? Nope. Not in one category. More proof, as if we need it, that America is not Europe. America is more puritanical. Even Hollywood is puritanical.

Director? Consider it the Class of 1999/2000. The Coens are old hands here.

Darren Aronofsky for Black Swan

Ethan Coen, Joel Coen for True Grit

David Fincher for The Social Network

Tom Hooper for The King's Speech

David O. Russell for The Fighter

I'd replace Hooper or Russell with Nolan, but, again, this is hardly a surprise. (Read Nathaniel on the third-time snub of Nolan.)

In fact, where are the surprises?

Fourth from the end, in the “Best Documentary, Features” category.

Not only was “Waiting for Superman,” which won the PGA last week, not nominated, but neither was “The Tillman Story.” Both, I thought, would elbow out my favorite, “Restrepo,” which I think is one of the best movies of the year, documentary or feature, but “Restrepo” made the list.

Exit Through the Gift Shop: Banksy

GasLand: Josh Fox

Inside Job: Charles Ferguson

Restrepo: Tim Hetherington, Sebastian Junger

Waste Land: Lucy Walker

I would've put “A Film Unfinished” on that list as well, if it were eligible (not sure if it is), but it's still a strong list. I haven't seen the two “Lands,” “Gas” or “Waste” (isn't that the same?), but the others are all worthy. “Exit” is unique, but parts of it are a bit of a larf, maybe the whole thing, so I wouldn't vote for it. “Inside Job” is a traditional, talking-head doc, and important, but, as I've written, hardly told me anything I didn't know.

But “Restrepo”? With apologies to Banksy: That's art.

See you February 27th. Maybe we'll even be pleasantly surprised that evening.

ADDENDA: A good post on Oscar snubs from The Film Experience.

Meanwhile, the smartest comment about “Waiting for Superman” being snubbed is in the comments field at Hollywood Elsewhere from a reader named Martin Blank. He writes: “Waiting for Superman got snubbed because it's anti-union. And Hollywood is a union town.” As soon as you read that, you go “Of course.”

The Producers Guild of America released their short list for best documentary feature yesterday. Thus:

• CLIENT 9: THE RISE AND FALL OF ELIOT SPITZER
• EARTH MADE OF GLASS
• INSIDE JOB
• SMASH HIS CAMERA
• THE TILLMAN STORY
• WAITING FOR ‘SUPERMAN’

I've seen two of these: “Inside Job” and “The Tillman Story.” The better doc, the more complex doc, is “Restrepo.”

Hopefully the Academy won't make the same mistake.

It's the next two months that get busy, of course, but thus far it hasn't been a bad year for movies... if you live in a city that plays limited releases and you know where to look.

Here are my top 10* thus far**. No order—although “Un Prophete” and “Restrepo” probably top the list. We'll see what the next two months bring.

What about you? Favorites of 2010? Recommendations?

*click on the poster for the review

**Caveat: I have yet to see “Grown Ups.”

Well, that sucked.

We knew it would. The big opener, the only wide opener, was the fourth “Resident: Evil” movie, and none of these movies (the first, “Apocalypse,” “Exctinction” and now “Afterlife”) has ever garnered higher than a 17% rating among top critics on Rotten Tomatoes, and none has grossed more than $55 million at the U.S. box office.

“Afterlife” opened better than the rest, $27.7m, unless you adjust for inflation, in which case it's still second-best. Expect a big drop next weekend, though. Every one of these things, even the first, dropped between 62% and 67% during the second weekend. There's a small but loyal audience for this crap so every three years ScreenGems trots out something during a weak weekend in September. 

How weak was this weekend? The weakest of the year: $77 million, shattering the previous low of $100 million set back during April when “The Back-Up Plan” and “The Losers” opened. Par for the course. The second weekend in September is often among the lowest earners of the year. It was second-worst in 2009, 2007, 2005, 2003, and worst in 2006. Fifteen weekends left this year. Place your bets.

“Takers,” a forgettable movie in its third week, finished second, with $6.1m. Last weekend's champ, “The American,” fell off 55 percent for $5.8 million and third place.

The sad totals here.

In other news: Two weekends ago, I wrote that “Twilight” is only $2 million from $300 million but down to 400+ theaters so it probably wouldn't make that milestone. Well, this weekend, at this late stage, Summit Entertainment added 791 theaters, so apparently they're gunning for it. The movie took in another $745K, which puts it less than $400K away.

“Inception” pulled in another $3 million for $282 million for the year. Worldwide it's at $701 million. That's 41st best ever. 18th best ever among non-sequels. Unadjusted.

Have you seen “Restrepo”? Do! It's playing in 37 theaters around the  U.S., has grossed $1.2 million, and is one of the best movies of the year.

Me, I took advantage of the crap weekend to see “Winter's Bone,” which has been out since June, but never in more than 141 theaters. It's now grossed $5.6 million. Not sure where it landed this weekend, since it isn't among the estimates, but to its $5.6 mil add my $9 times the six people in the Uptown Theater Friday evening. Review up tomorrow.

Alice keeps living here anymore.

Two documentaries about the war in Afghanistan played during the recent Seattle International Film Festival: “Restrepo” and “The Tillman Story.”

I thought “Restrepo” one of the best docs I've ever seen. I thought “The Tillman Story” OK but hardly news.

My reaction turns out to be the exact opposite of Jeff Wells' reaction over at Hollywood Elsewhere. What I loved about “Restrepo,” he hated. What I disliked about “The Tillman Story,” he loved.

Our disagreement doesn't have much to do with politics. We're both lefties.

Our disagreement has to do with aesthetics. What's the point of a documentary? What's the point of a war documentary? What's the point of art?

I'll leave the “Tillman” doc alone. Suffice it to say that people should see it. Particularly if they haven't read Jon Krakauer’s book “Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman,“ or are part of the ”Miss Me Yet?“ crowd. Or if they're George Bush or Dick Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld or... You get the idea.

As for ”Restrepo,“ Wells feels it fails because it fails to give us the big political picture. In a post he calls ”Afghanistan Bananistan,“ he writes:

I think I'm done with war documentaries that make a point of not offering any sort of opinion about anything — no history or context, no political point of view, just ”this is war, war is hell, taste it.“ Well, I'm sick of that shit after seeing Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger's Restrepo, a bravely captured, technically first-rate documentary about a year under fire in Afghanistan's Korangal Valley, a.k.a., ”the valley of death.“

There's no question whatsover that this movie lies through omission about what's really going on in Afghanistan in the broader, bigger-picture sense. I found myself becoming more and more angry about this after catching Restrepo two nights ago at the Walter Reade theatre, and especially after doing some homework.

In my review of ”Restrepo,“ written three weeks before Wells posted the above, I wrote:

“Restrepo” is the best thing I’ve seen or read about our presence in Afghanistan, and it’s not really about our presence in Afghanistan. It’s about, as the tagline says, one platoon, in one valley, for one year. It goes deep into these soldiers’ lives without telling us much about their actual lives (where they’re from, why they signed up, etc.). It’s an emotional movie precisely because its emotions are restrained. It’s artistic without being artistic. It’s artistic in the Dedalean sense. It doesn’t inspire kinetic emotions but static emotions. The mind is arrested. In this sense maybe Afghanistan itself is artistic. Our mind has been arrested there for almost 10 years.

”Dedalean sense“ is a bit hifalutin but it refers to Stephen Dedalus, the protagonist of James Joyce's ”A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.“ His definition of art is known to almost everyone—like myself—who wasted their college years as an English major:

The feelings excited by improper art are kinetic, desire or loathing. Desire urges us to possess, to go to something; loathing urges us to abandon, to go from something. These are kinetic emotions. The arts which excite them, pornographical or didactic, are therefore improper arts. The esthetic emotion (I use the general term) is therefore static. The mind is arrested and raised above desire and loathing.

Most movies are kinetic. Most documentaries are didactic, and you double-down on the didacticism if the doc is political. Wells, I would argue, wants ”Restrepo“ to be didatic. He wants it to say what he already knows—or what he finds out when he does his homework. That, I would argue, would be an OK doc but it wouldn't be ”Restrepo.“ ”Restrepo,“ I would argue, is better because it doesn't do this.

Another hifaultin quote about art, this one from Norman Mailer:

Art obviously depends upon incomplete communication. A work which is altogether explicit is not art, the audience cannot respond with their own creative act of the imagination, that small leap of the faculties which leaves one an increment more exceptional than when one began.

Part of the power of ”Restrepo“ lies in its restraint, in all that it holds back, in all that we feel as a result. It makes us care about these men and makes us wonder why they're there, and whether they should be there. We do this work, not the doc. We do this homework, if we haven't already. That's part of everything we bring to it. From A.O. Scott's review yesterday:

Like most movies of its kind, “Restrepo” avoids any explicit political discussion. The soldiers can’t wait to leave Korangal but are also determined to carry out their duties, and they don’t have the time or inclination to reflect on larger causes and contexts. But in their close observation of just how the war is being conducted, Mr. Junger and Mr. Hetherington provide plenty of grist for political argument. They also reveal one of the irreducible, grim absurdities of this war, which is the disjunction between its lofty strategic and ideological imperatives and the dusty, frustrating reality on the ground.

What are these guys doing there? It’s hard to watch this movie without asking that basic, hard question.

”Restrepo“ is a brilliant doc for other reasons as well. It sows confusion the way Afghanistan itself sows confusion. What is Restrepo? First it's a soldier. Then it's a dead soldier. Then it's an outpost, the furthest outpost in the Korangal Valley, named for this dead soldier. It's a name that hovers over everything.

The incident with the cow? First it's funny. Then it's happy (”That was a good day“). Then it's neither funny nor happy. It's yet another incident between the U.S. troops and the Afghan villagers that might be good but is probably bad. It's worrisome.

What about the enemy? It's an unseen enemy. We hear them fire on these men, and on the documentarians, but we never see them. Not once. That we know of. That, too, is worrisome.

Are we doing good there?

Is it worth it?

Should we leave?

What happens when we leave?

Hetherington and Junger trust us to come up with our own answers to these questions. They trust us to make that small leap of the faculties that leave us an increment more exceptional than when we began.

”Restrepo" opened yesterday in New York and L.A. It opens in Boston, Philly and Chicago on July 2; San Francisco, Houston and D.C. on July 9; and Dallas and Seattle on July 16.

The Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF) ended a week ago Sunday after three packed weeks of movies. I saw eight of them. None of my films, not even “Restrepo,” wound up among the award winners (Golden Space Needle, etc.), which are listed on the SIFF site alphabetically. It's so like Seattle to list award winners alphabetically. We don't want to imply that one is better than another—even when we're saying that these are better than the others.

I'll say it, of course. Of the movies I saw, this is how I'd rank them:

1. “Restrepo”
2. “Au Revoir Taipei”
3. “Garbo: The Spy”
4. “L'enfer d'Henri-Georges Clouzot”
5. “The City of Life and Death”
6. “The Tillman Story”
7. “The Actresses”
8. “Zona Sur”

As for SIFF itself? It's a great film festival, a local treasure, the largest film festival in the country supposedly (in terms of attendance? length? films? all?), and just getting all of these films here so we can see them in a theater (as opposed to on DVD or not at all), and ahead of critics in N.Y. and L.A., makes one a bit abashed about any petty criticisms one may have.

But here I go being petty:

• I saw “Restrepo” at the Harvard Exit, a group of us waiting outside in the semi-drizzle for nearly an hour on the off-chance of getting in. We got in. But just as we were buying tickets several people butted ahead of us to buy their tickets. But not to “Restrepo,” we found out. To “Les Secrets de sus Ojos.” Which was not part of the festival but was playing at the Harvard Exit nonetheless. I'm sure there was a reason a separate box office hadn't been set up for this non-festival movie, but I doubt the reason is worth the anxiety and bad feelings, for both “Restrepo” folks and “Ojos” folks, that the one line engendered.
• The next day I saw “Zona Sur” at Pacific Place downtown. A separate box office had been set up there, but it was a separate box office with two lines: one to buy tickets, one to pick up tickets. I was in the pick-up tickets line. Unfortunately the pick-up tickets line was the outer line while the pick-up window was the near window, and this meant folks trying to pick up tickets had to cross through the line of folks trying to buy tickets. Once again: confusion and anxiety. Those of us in line talked about how the lines (or the windows) should be switched, and I did my complaining perhaps a trifly loudly (I'm a charmer that way), and when I got to the window, the SIFF volunteer at the other window complained to me about me. Basically he said I should zip it. When I said that all they needed to do was switch the lines and everything would be OK, he interrupted with, “Sir? Sir? Please don't feed the chaos!” A funny line, but in the end it solved nothing.

But all in all my experience this year was better than my experience last year, when the movie I most wanted to see, the “Mesrine” two-parter with Vincent Cassel, was canceled at the last minute. (I think our print wound up in my least-favorite state: Texas.) I still haven't seen that movie yet. On Netflix, its arrival date is “Unknown.” On the plus side, Scarecrow Video in Seattle says they have it for region 1 players.

As for SIFF's Award winners? I'll have to check them out. But I wouldn't be surprised if they were a little too arty for my taste. SIFF listed “Restrepo” as the fourth-best documentary of the festival, and, for the moment, I refuse to believe that three other documentaries could be that good.

Dreamworks should send a thank-you note to Fox. This weekend, Fox's “Marmaduke” opened to bad reviews (12% among RT's top critics) and weak box office ($11 million in 3,200+ theaters, or sixth place), allowing Dreamworks' tired, overweight “Shrek” to huff atop the weekend charts for the third time.

Of course if Dreamworks begins its “thank you”s there, where do they stop? Thanks, Lions Gate, for putting so much money and effort into another Ashton Kutcher movie. Thanks, New Line, for trotting out Carrie and the girls (on camels!) one time too many. Thanks, Disney, for attempting to build a franchise around a video game even though only one video-game adaptation, “Lara Croft,” ever grossed over $100 million, while the streets are strewn with pieces of the rest: “Max Payne,” “Doom,” “BloodRayne,” “Street Fighter.” Thanks, everyone. 

Here's the weekend top 10. Reverse some positions and the top-10 grossing movies are also the top-10 movies in terms of availability. We're seeing what's out there. Which is why we're not seeing much:

* top critics only

A year ago “The Hangover” opened with an RT rating of 78% and grossed $44.9 million in its first three days. Pixar's “Up,” in its second week, with an RT rating of 95%, finished second with $44.1 million. “Land of the Lost” and “My Life in Ruins” both received scathing reviews and died out of the gate. They keep sending us movies to die out of the gate.

Here's the good news if you just want Shrek to go away: “Toy Story 3” arrives in two weeks.

Me, I've only been seeing SIFF (Seattle International Film Festival) movies the past two weeks. Thus far? “Restrepo.” Repeat: “Restrepo.”

WARNING: SPOILERS

“Restrepo” is the best thing I’ve seen or read about our presence in Afghanistan, and it’s not really about our presence in Afghanistan. It’s about, as the tagline says, one platoon, in one valley, for one year. It goes deep into these soldiers’ lives without telling us much about their actual lives (where they’re from, why they signed up, etc.). It’s an emotional movie precisely because its emotions are restrained. It’s artistic without being artistic. It’s artistic in the Dedalean sense. It doesn’t inspire kinetic emotions but static emotions. The mind is arrested. In this sense maybe Afghanistan itself is artistic. Our mind has been arrested there for almost 10 years.

The directors, author Sebastian Junger (“The Perfect Storm”; “War”) and documentarian Timothy Hetherington (“Liberia: An Uncivil War”), were embedded with Second Platoon, Battle Company, 173rd US Airborne, for parts of a year, from May 2007 to July 2008, and an early scene lets us know just how embedded they were. We’re inside a HUMVEE on patrol when an IED goes off, rocking the vehicle. The men stumble out, including the camera, which is our point-of-view. It’s still filming, shakily, while the men engage in a firefight, but it’s crackling, and there’s no sound. You think of war scenes where a soldier gets shelled and the sound goes out because he’s deafened or in shock. Same here. Our equipment is us.

We first see the men of Second Platoon goofing around and trash talking aboard a train before deployment. Then they ride Chinook helicopters into the dangerous Korengal valley, a beautifully mountainous but militarily indefensible region that stretches six miles along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, and the trash talking stops. In post-deployment interviews, they fess up to their initial thoughts. Specialist Sterling Jones: “What are we doing?” Sgt. Aron Hijar: “We are not ready for this.” Specialist Miguel Cortez: “I’m going to die here.”

Sgt. Joshua McDonough tells the camera, “They’re gathering intel on how to deal with us,” and you think he’s talking about the Taliban, who are trying to kill them, but he’s actually talking about the post-deployment medical personnel in Italy, who are trying to help them. This confusion, this thin line, is what the soldiers deal with every day. Who among the villagers is trying to help? Who is trying to hurt? How do you tell?

The doc keeps doing this. The thing you think we’re talking about isn’t the thing we’re talking about. Information is slowly widened. Clarity, if it comes, comes by and by.

Take the title. “Restrepo”? What the hell's that? Then on that pre-deployment train we discover that the biggest trash talker with the biggest smile is a guy named Juan S. “Doc” Restrepo. “Oh,” we think. “So Restrepo’s a guy. This is a documentary about a guy.” A few minutes later, we find out Restrepo was killed a month into deployment. “Oh,” we think. “So this is a doc about how these guys deal with the loss of this guy.” Then the company moves deeper into the Korengal valley, establish an outpost there, and name it Restrepo, O.P. Restrepo, in honor of their fallen friend. “Oh,” we think. “So this is... Well, this is about all of it, isn’t it?” Our information is slowly widened. Clarity comes by and by.

O.P. Restrepo is deeper into the Korengal Valley than the U.S. has ever pushed before, and four or five times a day, for weeks and months, Second Platoon engages in firefights with the unseen Taliban in the woods. “They’d ambush us from 360 degrees,” Specialist Bemble Pelkin says. “I felt like a fish in a barrel,” Capt. Dan Kearney says. When there are no firefights, there’s digging and fortifying the outpost; and when there’s no digging and fortifying, there’s goofing around to relieve the boredom. Pemble draws and writes. Specialist Angel Toves plays guitar. The men wrestle, or get newbies to wrestle, or goof around with the ‘80s song “Touch Me (I Want to Feel Your Body).” They show off photos of their kids. They hit golf balls into the valley.

The incident with the cow starts out as a joke. A daily briefing, a smile, “we’ll talk about the cow incident later,” laughter from the men. It’s a funny thing. Later, a soldier talks up the day they got fresh cow to eat, saying, “That was a good day.” Later still, three Afghani village elders, with their long beards and taut skin over high cheekbones. enter O.P. Restropo, and it’s seen as a positive step. Hearts and minds are being won. But the elders have come about the cow. It was one of theirs and they want to be repaid. Now it’s a serious thing. The soldiers are apologetic—it got caught in the wire, it had to be killed (then eaten)—but the elders want US$400, which the U.S. higher-ups refuse to give. We’re spending billions on wars but we can’t get US$400 to replace a cow. Instead the owner gets the equivalent in rations: rice and beans. The elders leave. Are we being too tough? Not tough enough? Our information is widened but not enough. Clarity doesn’t come.

This hearts and minds struggle is fascinating to watch. We see Capt. Kearney, with the best of intentions, having regular sitdowns, or shura, with the village elders, but there’s something Business 101 about him. Support us, he tells the elders, and we’ll “make you guys richer.” What about the killing of civilians? the elders want to know. The Captain says it’s all in the past, on another captain’s watch, and insists that everyone needs to put the past behind them. Does this translate? In a later meeting, frustrated beyond measure, he says to the elders, “You are not understanding that I don’t fucking care.” Is this translated? With all of the specialists we have, one wonders why we have no diplomatic specialists. Why aren’t diplomats embedded with soldiers? Why don’t our head honchos speak rudiments of the language? Why, in the soldiers’ down time, don’t they learn rudiments of the language? Why aren’t we adapting?

“Restrepo” is never not fascinating, which is odd, because we know answers to most of the questions that traditionally drive storytelling. We know who survives (anyone interviewed post-deployment), and we know O.P. Restrepo won’t be the turning point of the war (we’re in 2010 and we read the newspaper), so what keeps us glued to our seats? I think the short answer is we begin to care. And we want to know what happens to these people we begin to care about.

Why do we begin to care? John Ford once said the most interesting thing in the world to film is the human face, and that’s what Hetherington and Junger keep filming. Three faces stand out.

First, there’s Pemble, who’s got a calm, bemused way about him, like he’s holding onto an inner joke, and who’s a warning to every parent who thinks restricted access will diminish lifelong interest. His mom, he tells us, “was a fucking hippy” (he says it nicely) who didn’t allow him toy guns, or violent movies, or violent video games. And yet here he is—a soldier in Afghanistan. To mom’s credit, he seems the least likely of soldiers. There’s little that’s gung ho about him. He feels like he should be in a punk bar somewhere.

Then there’s Hijar, who’s got huge, tattooed arms in the footage, and an intense, haunted face in the post-deployment interviews. He and the others are talking about Operation Rock Avalanche, a three-day tactical walk-though in a Taliban stronghold, which all agree was the toughest part of the deployment. During the operation, Staff Sergeant Kevin Rice was injured and Staff Sergeant Larry Rougle, generally considered the platoon’s best soldier, was killed, and trying to describe it all, Hijar disconnects. His eyes get lost and he stops talking, and after 10 seconds of silence he looks at the cameraman: “Timeout, alright?” Later he talks about needing a different way to process everything that’s happened. He doesn’t want to forget it, he says; he just needs to process it differently.

Finally, there’s Cortez, who’s smiling, always smiling in the post-deployment interviews. One wonders: “Why is this dude smiling?” Then you realize there’s a disconnect between the look on his face and what he’s saying. Near the end, he talks about how he can’t sleep.

I’ve been on four or five different types of sleeping pills and none of them help. That’s how bad the nightmares are. I prefer not to sleep, and not dream about it, than sleep and see the pictures in my head. It’s...pretty bad.

The smile never leaves his face.

“Restrepo” should get nominated for an Academy Award for best documentary feature, and, unless it’s a helluva year, it should win. It’s already got my early vote for one of the best films of the year. There’s not a false moment in it, not a dull moment in it, and in a serious country it would be released into over 4,000 theaters and everyone would see it. But we’re not a serious country. We haven’t been a serious country for decades. A Roman helmet is painted on a wall at O.P. Restrepo, because it’s cool, I suppose, to remind the men of gladiators, I suppose, but it merely reminded me of the fall of the Roman empire, of the fall of all empires, and it made me wonder where we are in that fall.

“Restrepo” won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival and played the Seattle International Film Festival in May. It will get a wider release June 25. It's re-scheduled for Seattle on July 2.

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