In early summer 2007, filmmakers Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington settled in with a platoon of 15 soldiers newly arrived in the Korengal Valley of eastern Afghanistan, a Taliban and al-Qaeda stronghold considered one of the most dangerous postings in the war. Restrepo, the movie they made there, is remarkable not because it heightens the drama of the combat experience — one that, face it, doesn’t need any heightening via filmmaking magic — but because it so unassumingly captures the everyday rhythms of these soldiers’ lives. One minute they’re ducking Taliban bullets that come seemingly from nowhere. The next they’re cutting loose at an impromptu nighttime disco party, a short one (apparently dictated by the length of one dance track queued up on an iPod) and one with only four guys total. But the basic image — the sight of young people dancing and horsing around — is so joyous and elemental that it’s nearly devastating: Only then do we get the full measure of what it means that those bullets missed.
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REVIEW: Low-Key, High-Octane Restrepo Captures War’s Everyday Realities
