Title/Year: The Hurt Locker (2008)
Director/Birth Country/Year
Born:
Kathryn Bigelow – born in San Carlos, CA 1951
Budget: $15 million (estimated)
Gross: $49,230,772 (worldwide)
Synopsis: A crack EOD (Explosive
Ordinance Disposal) unit with the US Army, explores Bagdad in search for IEDs
and other explosives. They also explore what it means to be a team as they
struggle, both individually and as a unit, with their extreme situations during
the 2004 conflict in Iraq.
Narrative and Visual Keywords: EOD – Iraq – Gulf War – Iraqi Freedom – Army
– IED – Adrenaline – War as a drug – addicted to combat - renegade – bomb squad Camera/lighting/editing technique: The entire film is almost
completely shot handheld to give a “documentary” feel and a sense of
participation for the audience. The use of high speed Phantom cameras also
helps achieve the sense of capturing the concussion of an IED blast visually at
1000’s of frames per second.
Political/ Social Commentary: War is a drug
Political/ Social Commentary: War is a drug
Historical Relevance/
Recognition:
Nominated for nine Academy awards and won six including Original Screenplay
(Mark Boal), Sound Mix, Sound Editing, Film Editing, Best Picture, and Best
Director (Kathryn Bigelow)
Random fact, Etc.: Kathryn Bigelow was nominated
for best director in 2010. Her competition in this category was James Cameron
for Avatar, who just so happened to be Bigelow’s ex. She won best director
beating the seemingly unstoppable Cameron. I guess she picked up a thing or two
while in a relationship with him.
POV – Point Of View:
In this film, we experience a variety of POV perspectives.
In the film, we follow three members of an Army EOD (Explosive Ordinance
Disposal) unit attached to Bravo company set during the 2004 conflict in Iraq. The
variation in perspective changes from character to character. In this EOD team
we have the young, impressionable soldier, Specialist Owen Eldridge (Brian
Geraghty). Another character, SGT JT Sanborn (Anthony Mackie), is the more
seasoned, methodical soldier in the group. Then you have SGT First Class
William James (Jeremy Renner), he is in a category all his own. James is the
team lead and marches to the beat of his own drummer. He doesn’t exactly follow
EOD protocol as the team goes out on each mission.
The POV changes between these three team members often, but
tends to hold more with James. We see more of the world and his own world
through his eyes and experiences. There is another POV that can be argued and
that, I feel, is the POV of the team as one cohesive unit. The EOD team in some
respects is a character as well. There are other companies in various areas of
Iraq at this time, but we see the Bravo Company EOD team and its’ experiences
in Iraq at this time. The team behaves differently than other EOD teams, has
different experiences than others, and evolves differently than others as well.
This, of course, can be argued as just the nature and behavior of the team
members within.
Almost immediately in The Hurt Locker, we take on the positional
perspective of the US Army and the EOD team itself as we open on the same EOD
team but with a different team leader, SSGT Matt Thompson (Guy Pearce), who
also has a different philosophy in the way he leads. He appears to enjoy his
work as he describes the “beautiful umbrella pattern” of the controlled
explosion they are about to detonate. Unfortunately, things don’t go as planned
and Thompson is forced to don a specially designed bomb suit and manually set
the charges. A man with a cell phone is spotted nearby and before Thompson can
get within a safe distance from the blast radius, the man with the cell
detonates the IED, killing Thompson instantly. We are therefore instantly
placed in the positional perspective of the US Army EOD team.
IDENTITY:
The Hurt Locker features quite a variety of examples
displaying identity. Each member of the EOD team individually deals with their
extreme situations differently. The young buck, Eldridge, is constantly
questioning his place in the war. Is today going to be his last? A military
psychiatrist even visits him periodically to check on his status. I feel this
is also an expository way to reveal Eldridge’s inner struggle by explaining his
feelings to an external character.
Sanborn we see as methodical and tactful. Although we do not
see his struggle quite as much or so obvious, he still shows signs. He is used
to things being done a certain way. There is protocol to follow on the EOD
team. James’ introduction into the team shakes up Sanborn’s comfort zone of
control. One definitive moment of Sanborn’s struggle follows another successful
mission. The situation has been diffused, but Sanborn is frustrated with James’
methods and slams a fist across his face.
James deals with things in his own way, like everything he
deals with in this film. He tends to drink on base when alone in his quarters.
The way he goes about the job is his own as well. He wants to face the
ordinance head on, face to face. Each new mission is another puzzle for him to
figure out. He doesn’t send in the “bot”, as they call it. He straps on the
bulky bomb suit and helmet instead.
Another example of identity can be seen in the cultural otherness
that is represented. In the beginning of the film, the local Iraqis are distant
and quiet. They are voyeurs standing in the streets and on balconies watching their
own “reality TV”. Their distance reinforces the tension that exists with each
mission. As the film progresses, we get a bit closer to the cultural otherness
that is truly there. James befriends a young Iraqi boy who sells pirated DVDs.
The boy knows English, but it is still broken and most of the English he does
know sounds like snippets from a hip hop video. We get even closer to the
otherness as James and the team stumble upon a young boy lying dead on a table.
He is covered in blood and has a fresh surgical wound. The young boy is now a “body
bomb” and has been implanted with explosives. James is convinced this boy and
the one he has befriended on base are one in the same. The otherness has
shifted from a voyeuristic distance to that of victims of war by the hand of
their own people.
The idea of cultural otherness doesn’t ONLY apply to the
Iraqis. Near the end of the film, James gets to spend some time at home with
his son and the mother of his child, played by Evangeline Lily. This cultural
otherness explores the mundane aspects of civilian life. Things like shopping
for groceries. One excellent example of this sequence is when James is standing
in the cereal aisle that appears to go for miles. Cereal boxes on either side
of him as far as the eye can see. He realizes this decision is of no importance
in the grand scheme of things and grabs the first box directly in front of him.
MORALITY:
Questions of morality and war tend to go hand in hand. Are
we there for the right reasons? Are we killing innocent women and children?
Examples of morality in The Hurt Locker can be seen mostly through the eyes of
our main character, SGT First Class William James. A prime example of James’
moral compass starts when we first meet the DVD peddling Iraqi boy. James almost
instantly takes a liking to the kid.
Things take a dark turn when James and the team find a dead
Iraqi child mutilated on a table. (see IDENTITY above) James is certain this
child is in fact his new found friend. He struggles to place charges on top of
the boy’s body, in an attempt to detonate and destroy the cache of other
ordinance they have found. James can’t bring himself to do it and instead,
clips the freshly sewn surgical opening and digs out the explosives that reside
inside the boy’s body. He then covers the body with a type of thin cloth and
proceeds to carry him out of the building. Blood soaks through the cloth as
James secures the body.
The good SGT is disturbed by this turn of events and goes
out beyond the safety of the guarded walls, armed only with his 9mm sidearm, in
search of the boy’s home. He does not find the answers he seeks. Only more
questions. We are later relieved to find the dead child they found was in fact
NOT the boy James has grown fond of, but James is in a different place now. Having
dealt with the boy’s apparent death, James now keeps his distance perhaps to
protect himself.
MEMORY:
The Hurt Locker, in my humble opinion, is one of the best
contemporary war dramas around. The film consciously memorializes war in both
the positive and negative aspects of not only war in general, but this
particularly “unpopular” war in Iraq. The film depicts an EOD team unmatched in
their skill in tactically disarming explosives and explosive situations.
Although, not every mission is met with success as is the case in one last
mission where a man has been forced to wear a bomb vest. James is unable to
disarm the bomb without either killing the man or himself. The bomb is attached
to a timer and time simply runs out for the innocent Iraqi man, both
figuratively and literally.
The Hurt Locker is genuine in its’ portrayal of soldiers at
war. I think sometimes society forgets that these are human men and women
fighting over there. They’re not super soldiers, they’re people. They make
mistakes, they hurt, they cry, they feel. Not all members of the military join
for a cause as honorable as fighting for their country. The Hurt Locker
accurately depicts these men dealing with extreme situations and learning to
cope with their team dynamic and the dynamics of war. Kathryn Bigelow’s The
Hurt Locker MORE than deserved the multiple Academy awards it has received.
References: IMDb
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