Directed by Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington. Club, Queens's, Belfast; IFI, Dublin. 93 min
IT SEEMS A long time since liberal politicians – Al Gore and Barack Obama, to name two – felt able, when considering their country’s recent military follies, to identify the Afghanistan conflict as A Good War. This hugely impressive documentary will do nothing to rehabilitate the campaign.
Restrepofollows one US army platoon on its posting to the notoriously hairy Korangal Valley in the northeast of the country. Journalist Sebastian Junger and photographer Tim Hetherington shot the film while on assignment for Vanity Fairmagazine. It was clearly a perilous business.
Restrepobegins with the troops surviving a roadside detonation, and goes on to take in several savage skirmishes with the enemy. In one particularly harrowing moment, the film-makers continue to shoot as a soldier breaks down while under fire. Few combat documentaries have ever got quite so close to the action.
The candid footage is accompanied by impressively incisive interviews with the soldiers. None of them breaks ranks spectacularly, but only the commanding officer manages to feign anything like enthusiasm for the campaign.
Restrepogenerates just the right kind of conflicting emotions. Watching footage of the valley being bombed by US aircraft and the officer's subsequent, pathetic attempts to win over village elders, most sensible viewers will marvel at the deadly naivety of the enterprise. At the same time, it is impossible not to warm to the young soldiers – so many of them with Irish names – and cautiously hope that they will succeed in their endeavours.
Hetherington and Junger stoke those equivocal feelings with that carefully chosen title. Private Juan Restrepo was a young trooper killed in the early days of the posting. In tribute, the remaining soldiers name an improvised outpost after their lost pal. The title both honours the lost and references the continuing struggle.
It hardly needs to be said that both pro- and anti-war factions have objected to Restrepo. Where are the Afghan voices? Well, such a swerve in point-of-view would damage the film's determination to represent the campaign from the soldier's perspective. Shouldn't the greater objectives of the war be acknowledged? Again, high ideals are rarely discussed at Outpost Restrepo.
This is a cool, disciplined slice of véritéthat fairly makes the pulse rattle.
