RESTREPO - No Rest, No Recouperation [A Review]
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By francie scanlon June 25, 2010, 9:18 pm |
War is like a pawn shop. When it's over and you've won, you learn the shop and your 'treasure' are gone forever.
Who could imagine in the tony setting of the 2010 Sundance Film Festival that a documentary about war and all its trappings would garner the Grand Jury Prize!
RESTREPO has won more hearts and minds than perhaps any war ever could aspire. RESTREPO is no arm-chair General's diatribe nor pablum-soaked morality tale about war being hell. RESTREPO is war - un-censored, un-cut, un-filtered and in-your-face - nine-three minutes, non-stop.
Think you can take it. Don't even bother with that calculation. See RESTREPO.
But before you do there are three critical time-lines to bear in mind.
Firstly, Navy SEAL Lt. Michael P. Murphy, USN deployed to Afghanistan in April 2005. Murphy, who was awarded the Medal of Honor, posthumously, led a four-man SEAL squad that covertly infiltrated into the 9,000 foot Hindu-Kush mountains along the Pakistan border on June 27th, seeking to capture or kill high-value Taliban targets. Though wounded Murphy still engaged the fiercest firefight as he moved to higher ground, openly engaging electronic outreach for help, for which he signed-off, "Thank you."
Although a Quick Reaction Force instantly mobilized to reinforce the SEAL squad, eight Navy SEALs and eight Army Night Stalker commandos succumbed when their MH-47 helicopter was struck by a rocket-propelled grenade and imploded.
The remains of Lt. Murphy were located during a combat search and rescue operation on July 4, 2005.
The second significant date is April 14, 2010 when the pullout of the remaining 120 U.S. soldiers from the Korengal Valley [Afghanistan] occurred. Part of a strategy announced in 2009 by top American and Nato commander, General Stanley McChrystal, this force re-deployment sought to abandon small, difficult-to-defend bases in remote, sparsely populated areas and concentrate forces around major population centers. Significant numbers of those outposts were established in the intervening years to monitor Taliban and Al Qaeda penetration from Pakistan but proved difficult to re-supply and defend.
RESTREPO, a 15-man outpost named after a 20 year-old platoon medic killed in action, was one such exceptional stronghold.
Thirdly, RESTREPO, a National Geographic Entertainment release, opens on Friday, June 25 in New York at the Angelika Film Center, with a national roll-out to follow.
Journey with award-winning journalists - Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger - as they 'entrust' [June 2007 to July 2008] with the soldiers of Second Platoon, Battle Company, 173rd US Airborne in the remote Korengal Valley, a sliver six miles long and one-half mile wide, in eastern Afghanistan.
As Winston Churchill once opined: "Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result."
Who could imagine in the tony setting of the 2010 Sundance Film Festival that a documentary about war and all its trappings would garner the Grand Jury Prize!
RESTREPO has won more hearts and minds than perhaps any war ever could aspire. RESTREPO is no arm-chair General's diatribe nor pablum-soaked morality tale about war being hell. RESTREPO is war - un-censored, un-cut, un-filtered and in-your-face - nine-three minutes, non-stop.
Think you can take it. Don't even bother with that calculation. See RESTREPO.
But before you do there are three critical time-lines to bear in mind.
Firstly, Navy SEAL Lt. Michael P. Murphy, USN deployed to Afghanistan in April 2005. Murphy, who was awarded the Medal of Honor, posthumously, led a four-man SEAL squad that covertly infiltrated into the 9,000 foot Hindu-Kush mountains along the Pakistan border on June 27th, seeking to capture or kill high-value Taliban targets. Though wounded Murphy still engaged the fiercest firefight as he moved to higher ground, openly engaging electronic outreach for help, for which he signed-off, "Thank you."
Although a Quick Reaction Force instantly mobilized to reinforce the SEAL squad, eight Navy SEALs and eight Army Night Stalker commandos succumbed when their MH-47 helicopter was struck by a rocket-propelled grenade and imploded.
The remains of Lt. Murphy were located during a combat search and rescue operation on July 4, 2005.
The second significant date is April 14, 2010 when the pullout of the remaining 120 U.S. soldiers from the Korengal Valley [Afghanistan] occurred. Part of a strategy announced in 2009 by top American and Nato commander, General Stanley McChrystal, this force re-deployment sought to abandon small, difficult-to-defend bases in remote, sparsely populated areas and concentrate forces around major population centers. Significant numbers of those outposts were established in the intervening years to monitor Taliban and Al Qaeda penetration from Pakistan but proved difficult to re-supply and defend.
RESTREPO, a 15-man outpost named after a 20 year-old platoon medic killed in action, was one such exceptional stronghold.
Thirdly, RESTREPO, a National Geographic Entertainment release, opens on Friday, June 25 in New York at the Angelika Film Center, with a national roll-out to follow.
Journey with award-winning journalists - Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger - as they 'entrust' [June 2007 to July 2008] with the soldiers of Second Platoon, Battle Company, 173rd US Airborne in the remote Korengal Valley, a sliver six miles long and one-half mile wide, in eastern Afghanistan.
As Winston Churchill once opined: "Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result."