REDACTED
Hey everyone. Capone in Chicago here.
I wish I could remember which comedian it was who first made the joke about how there was at in all likelihood at least one person who died in the World Trade Center attacks who beat his wife or kids. The point was that the hero-ification of the people that died on that horrible day had maybe gotten out of hand. I'm not saying I agree with that philosophy, but I'm guessing that same stand-up comic thinks the same thing about the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Brian De Palma's often shocking REDACTED is going to infuriate many U.S. citizens, especially ones with family members serving in the armed forces. But the simple fact is that there are assholes and reprehensible figures in every line of work. Some of them are office workers, some are soldiers, and some are filmmakers.
De Palma's story of a small group of U.S. soldiers that participate in the rape of a young Iraqi girl and the killing of her and her family is deliberately inflammatory, bordering on exploitative. But I don't consider this a bad thing. In the last few months especially I've easily seen a dozen or so feature and documentary films that have been almost sterile in their depiction of the war and our troops. Everyone is so afraid of offending or appearing to insult the wrong group that the films seem to skirt some of the uglier aspects of the war. That doesn't mean the films are no good, but it's always left me with the sense that something is missing. These are the sort of missing pieces I'm guessing were also absent in films about the Vietnam War that came out during that conflict, but were later exposed in a handful of films that came out in the 1980s.
De Palma's statement with REDACTED appears to ask, "Why wait?" He wants the atrocities of this war to be exposed now. Since films about torture/interrogation have already been done, De Palma structures this fictional account of events that are based on a real event in a highly unusual and effective format. All of the footage in REDACTED is meant to look as if it were taken from pre-existing footage (one soldier's home movies/video diaries; closed circuit surveillance footage; news reports; a French documentary; videos to loved ones back home), all of which are fake but seem very real. The cumulative effect of this format is like watching compiled evidence against these men for their crimes. In essence, De Palma has remade his underrated 1989 work CASUALTIES OF WAR about a young girl's rape in Vietnam. But this latest work feels more immediate and raw. De Palma exposes how the military drills a killer mentality into these young men and sets them loose in a land where they were probably not be held accountable for their actions. But he's also making statements here about the media and the military superstructure that would rather bury this sort of event than deal with the public relations consequences of a hearing and disciplinary actions.
The truth is even if I thought some of the performances were way over the top to the point of being too ferocious at times, it's exciting to see a master like De Palma so pissed off about something and then make a movie about it. There's a spirit of aggression and passion in REDACTED that you simply never see in feature filmmaking by such a well-known director. Not even Oliver Stone has put out a film this angry in years. De Palma has spent much of his career exploring themes regarding what is real and what is manufactured image, but never has he taken these ideas and applied them in such a fiery format. All of that being said, my guess is that very few people will go see REDACTED. If the world even gets a whiff that this film might be anti-troops (it is not), they'll avoid it like the plague (Bill O'Reilly has already said De Palma should be arrested for treason for this film). That's a shame, because REDACTED is exactly the kind of kick in the ass some people need to be driven to outrage. If Robert Redford made LIONS FOR LAMBS to get people talking, then Brian De Palma made his work to get people marching in the streets. This is a film that will probably disappear without much impact today, but will be looked at years from now as a solitary voice of cinematic dissent against this current war. De Palma's wearing his balls on his sleeve with this one, folks, and they are indeed mighty and pendulous.
Capone
I can't think of anything appropriate... email me to bitch at my liberal bias!
