ARMADILLO Review
[Our thanks to Brandon Tenold for the following review.]
Danish director Januz Metz Pedersen has set a new standard for intimacy in war documentary filmmaking with his debut feature Armadillo, a film that shows both the mundane everyday realities of military life as well as some of the most frighteningly up close combat footage ever caught on film. A source of controversy in its homeland and criminally overlooked by the Academy Awards, Armadillo has made a decent run on the festival circuit but deserves to be more widely seen.
The film follows a small group of Danish soldiers during a 6 month tour of duty at Forward Operating Base Armadillo, located in the notoriously violent Helmand province in southern Afghanistan, considered to be a Taliban stronghold. The filmmakers follow the soldiers right from the beginning to the very end of their tour, from their debauched going away party and tearful goodbyes to their families and friends to their return home. Along the way, we see nearly nearly every aspect of their lives in Afghanistan, including relatively mundane details like complaints about boredom during uneventful patrols or relaxing back at the base by watching porn and playing video games (in one of best match cuts since Kubrick's 2001, a virtual grenade thrown during a bout of online combat cuts to a real life explosion near the base). These scenes are far from boring. Instead, they help to build a simmering sense of tension before boiling over during the terror and adrenaline rush of combat. Pedersen and his crew are right next to the soldiers as the bullets start whizzing past, and their willingness to put themselves in harm's way for the sake of the film is astounding, with both combat and its aftermath shown in graphic detail. The cinematography, sound design and editing are all fantastic, so much so that at times Armadillo doesn't even seem like a documentary, but rather a gritty war drama. However, I have a hard time believing the scenes of the soldiers engaging with Taliban fighters were staged in any way, no matter how great the color correction is. Uno Helmersson's wistful music score, reminiscent of Philip Glass, is moody but never overpowering.
Despite containing no narration and few "one on one" interviews with the soldiers, the audience gets to know the small band of troops pretty well. We see their macho posturing as a way of dealing with boredom during downtime as well as their efforts to win over the Afghan locals, mostly through reparation payments for collateral damage. We also see their frustration in dealing with an enemy who hides and blends in with civilians and at times seems virtually invisible. While some war documentaries tend to either treat the soldiers with jingoistic reverence or place them in contempt, Armadillo does neither. Instead, it lets them speak for themselves, and admirably avoids sentimentality.
Despite winning the critics prize at Cannes, Armadillo has had only limited showings in North America. Whether it's because of sensitivity to the subject matter or the language barrier, Pedersen's film has seemingly had a hard time finding a bigger audience, which is a shame. It's a powerful, intense piece of filmmaking and in terms of sheer unfettered access to nearly every aspect of modern combat it will be very hard to match.
Review by Brandon Tenold.
Danish director Januz Metz Pedersen has set a new standard for intimacy in war documentary filmmaking with his debut feature Armadillo, a film that shows both the mundane everyday realities of military life as well as some of the most frighteningly up close combat footage ever caught on film. A source of controversy in its homeland and criminally overlooked by the Academy Awards, Armadillo has made a decent run on the festival circuit but deserves to be more widely seen.
The film follows a small group of Danish soldiers during a 6 month tour of duty at Forward Operating Base Armadillo, located in the notoriously violent Helmand province in southern Afghanistan, considered to be a Taliban stronghold. The filmmakers follow the soldiers right from the beginning to the very end of their tour, from their debauched going away party and tearful goodbyes to their families and friends to their return home. Along the way, we see nearly nearly every aspect of their lives in Afghanistan, including relatively mundane details like complaints about boredom during uneventful patrols or relaxing back at the base by watching porn and playing video games (in one of best match cuts since Kubrick's 2001, a virtual grenade thrown during a bout of online combat cuts to a real life explosion near the base). These scenes are far from boring. Instead, they help to build a simmering sense of tension before boiling over during the terror and adrenaline rush of combat. Pedersen and his crew are right next to the soldiers as the bullets start whizzing past, and their willingness to put themselves in harm's way for the sake of the film is astounding, with both combat and its aftermath shown in graphic detail. The cinematography, sound design and editing are all fantastic, so much so that at times Armadillo doesn't even seem like a documentary, but rather a gritty war drama. However, I have a hard time believing the scenes of the soldiers engaging with Taliban fighters were staged in any way, no matter how great the color correction is. Uno Helmersson's wistful music score, reminiscent of Philip Glass, is moody but never overpowering.
Despite containing no narration and few "one on one" interviews with the soldiers, the audience gets to know the small band of troops pretty well. We see their macho posturing as a way of dealing with boredom during downtime as well as their efforts to win over the Afghan locals, mostly through reparation payments for collateral damage. We also see their frustration in dealing with an enemy who hides and blends in with civilians and at times seems virtually invisible. While some war documentaries tend to either treat the soldiers with jingoistic reverence or place them in contempt, Armadillo does neither. Instead, it lets them speak for themselves, and admirably avoids sentimentality.
Despite winning the critics prize at Cannes, Armadillo has had only limited showings in North America. Whether it's because of sensitivity to the subject matter or the language barrier, Pedersen's film has seemingly had a hard time finding a bigger audience, which is a shame. It's a powerful, intense piece of filmmaking and in terms of sheer unfettered access to nearly every aspect of modern combat it will be very hard to match.
Review by Brandon Tenold.
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