About War, As Straight A Look As You Can Get

    The documentary “Restrepo: One Platoon, One Year, One Valleyâ€� is a remarkable film by Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger following the actions of am Army platoon in the KorengalValley in eastern Afghanistan — considered the most dangerous part of that country.

   The men of the Second Platoon establish an outpost they name “Restrepo,â€� after PFC Juan Restrepo, killed in action early in the deployment. At Restrepo, they are on the very front of the front line — beyond them are the Taliban.

   The filmmakers made ten trips, beginning in June 2007. According to the promotional materials, “They slept alongside the soldiers, ate with them, survived the boredom and the heat and the flies with them, went on patrol with them, and eventually came to be considered virtually part of the platoon.â€�

   “Restrepoâ€� alternates between footage shot in the field and post-deployment interviews in Italy. Some of the footage is funny — soldiers dancing to a disco track in their primitive hut, crude jokes in the mess at the main base in the valley.

   Some is grim — one solider breaks down after another is killed. Another has the dead man’s blood on his uniform — lots of it. They apparently know which of the enemy is responsible. His sergeant looks at the soldier with the bloodstained uniform and says “Next time you see that dude? Take his head off.â€�

   The platoon interacts with the local village elders, including a couple of ancients with startling, bright red beards. Trying to convince them to cooperate is uphill work. One younger man, who raises some suspicions among platoon members by virtue of his shiny new watch, explains simply that if they work with the Americans, the Taliban will kill them.

   Another group comes to complain about a dead cow. The soldiers tell them the beast got tangled up in the concertina wire and had to be put down. (They omit that they ate it.)

   The irate owner wants $500; there’s a comic moment with a soldier on the phone with a superior in some undoubtedly safer place, trying to explain.

   And there’s a not so comic moment involving small children injured in the fighting. The platoon’s captain expresses some frustration three months later, regretting the civilian casualties while pointing out that it is almost impossible to tell the good guys from the bad.

   In a refreshing change of pace, “Restrepoâ€� avoids any political comment at all. The viewer is given a foxhole-eye view of what war is like, and gets to know a bit about the men from their one-on-one interviews. It’s straight reportage, or as straight as it gets when there is 150 hours of footage to compress into a 94-minute film. As such it’s unlikely to satisfy partisans back home, or change anybody’s mind.

   As documentary and as journalism — two disciplines that have suffered greatly from problems of thinly-disguised (or overt) advocacy — in the last decade or so — “Restrepoâ€� is a grand slam.

   “Restrepo,â€� which won a prize for documentary at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, has had special limited showings at movie houses. It will be aired on the National Geographic Channel in the fall. It is rated R for language and violence.