Restrepo
Submitted by Sarah D. Bunting on January 27, 2011 – 9:58 PM8 Comments
Death Race 44, Sarah 12; 1 of 24 categories completed
A solid documentary, but not groundbreaking, with one exception. It’s one of the few artistic documents of war, for lack of a better term, that shows a soldier sobbing over a companymate who’s just gotten killed — that gives us, civilians, any insight into that, not the way it feels necessarily but the way he finds to carry it.
Gen and I both kept thinking about how young the guys look versus how much more mature than us they seem. I frequently think that about people in the armed forces, but that contrast runs all through the film.
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Tags: Oscars 2011 Death Race Restrepo
I DVR’d this off tv and I haven’t watched the whole thing yet, but so far, I really like it. They all do seem very young and I love the part where Misha talks about his parents taking away his turtle squirt gun.
I believe you can get this streaming on Netflix right now.
My 18-yr-old brother is in the army, in Afghanistan, as we speak. He strongly recommended this doc as a good example of What It’s Really Like to be there. Whether that makes for a good movie is a question, but I do feel a little closer to him having watched it.
Even putting aside the fact that he is my kid brother and I will always think of him that way, I do agree – they all look really, really young!
Is Sebastian Junger actually present in this doc? Either as narrator or actually on camera? I’m really interested in this but I don’t think I could take it if I had to endure him.
@Lynne, you may hear him off-camera, posing questions to the guys in uniform, but I don’t recall any narration at all and he doesn’t do any stand-ups or anything like that.
PS @Driver, give your bro a stay-safe-and-thank-you from us.
@Driver B: What Sarah said.
Now that you’ve seen the movie, you should read the companion book: War by Sebastian Junger. I just finished it, and am trying to get my hubby to read it too. (Sorry about the giant link, I am tiny url ignorant.)
http://www.amazon.com/WAR-Sebastian-Junger/dp/0446556246/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1296767037&sr=1-1
RIP Tim Hetherington, who was lost in Libya.