Wednesday, April 06, 2011

Poster for 'Armadillo'


Armadillo is a forward operating base in the Helmand province of Afghanistan manned by Danish and British troops.

IMDb has this summary:

In February 2009 a group of Danish soldiers accompanied by documentary filmmaker Janus Metz arrived at Armadillo, an army base in the southern Afghan province of Helmand. Metz and cameraman Lars Skree spent six months following the lives of young soldiers situated less than a kilometer away from Taliban positions. The outcome of their work is a gripping and highly authentic war drama that was justly awarded the Grand Prix de la Semaine de la Critique at this year's Cannes film festival. But it also provoked furious debate in Denmark concerning the controversial behavior of certain Danish soldiers during a shootout with Taliban fighters. The filmmakers repeatedly risked their lives shooting this tense, brilliantly edited, and visually sophisticated probe into the psychology of young men in the midst of a senseless war whose victims are primarily local villagers. Yet more disturbing than scenes... Written by Karlovy Vary Int'l Film Festival


Reviewers are knocked out. Village Voice says 'An astonishing leap forward for nonfiction storytelling.' That's a hell of a thing to say when you think about it.

Footage of one (Danish) soldier, after a firefight, saying they had "liquidated wounded people and piled up the dead to take pictures of ourselves as heroes" stirred up a storm of controversy, especially in Denmark.





No comments:

Blog Archive