Hacker Cinema
Armadillo
2010 · Film · documentary · 105 min
Directed by Janus Metz
Danish soldiers are sent to Afghanistan in 2009 for 6 months, to help stabilize the country against the Taliban. They're stationed on Armadillo military base in Helman province. Unlike other war movies, this is the real deal – no actors.
6 positive1 neutralfrom 7 commenters
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7 comments on Hacker News
The sister film is Armadillo (2010) [0] which follows a group of Danish soldiers from pre-deployment shenanigans, to the FOB in Afghanistan, IED attacks, possible war crimes (found to be baseless), and then the return home.
To me, the most striking scenes were the ones where the Danish and UK soldiers would play FPS games, don very high tech gear, bounce about in armour, etc. and then contrast that to the rusty, bent rifles and leftovers from the soviets, the sandals, the dust, the mud, of the afghan fighters. The war has never been close in any way and the Junger quote comes screaming into your head:
“Each Javelin round costs $80,000, and the idea that it's fired by a guy who doesn't make that in a year at a guy who doesn't make that in a lifetime is somehow so outrageous it almost makes the war seem winnable.”
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armadillo_(2010_film)
Generally all 'in-depth' political analysis is terrible propaganda. The best Afghanistan content I've seen has been documentaries such as Armadillo. I'll pay to watch that (through Netflix for example).
"Unless we find a way to pay people to do these jobs, we'll be eating the writings of people hired by those with money and vested interests."
I suspect it may have been the point of your comment but that's exactly what we are already doing.
I have another example. The Irish Times (one of Ireland's leading broadsheet newspapers) bought myhome.ie for €50m euros in 2007. The Irish Times had a huge daily property section at the time and was profiting greatly, riding on the crest of the wave of the property bubble. They also received uncountable millions from the banks to advertise the ridiculous 110% mortgages etc within the pages of their daily paper. I'll let you guess how much content that was critical of the property boom was published within their pages and how long it took for them to do any investigative journalism into the fraudulent behaviour of the banks whose ad budgets were sustaining them.
Capitalism and the truth are not compatible. Too many vested interests everywhere. War journalists can't be critical because they will lose access. Everyone is tip-toeing about scared to set a foot wrong incase it dries up their income supply (or at least removes the circumstances which allows them to earn a living). We've hit saturation point and all this disruption through internet and automation is a godsend in the long run but will cause much suffering in the short term.
Restrepo nor Armadillo really stuck with me. I'll admit I've seen way too many of these kinds of documentaries, even to the point of not being able to tell them apart. The PBS ones are quite good. Two that stands out of the top of my head is Blood and Dust and Bulletproof Salesman, the later being mostly about Iraq.
http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/peopleandpower/2011/09/2011915105947578551.html http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1186201/
If you liked this video you might also like:
* Armadillo[1] a documentary about a group of Danish soldiers deployed to Helmland. Armadillo is right up there with Restrepo in my opinion.
* The Dancing Boys of Afghanistan[2] if you are curious about the bacha bazi boys.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armadillo_%28film%29
[2] http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/dancingboys/
An article about the reasons infantry fire or not:
http://www.historynet.com/men-against-fire-how-many-soldiers-actually-fired-their-weapons-at-the-enemy-during-the-vietnam-war.htm
I read somewhere (citation needed!) that the percentage of soldiers who deliberately fire their weapon at the enemy has increased from WWI to the Iraq conflict, which some put down to violence in movies and video games. After watching excellent Iraqi conflict documentaries like Restrepo and Armadillo (Danish movie) and seeing how soldiers react to conflict, there could be merit to that argument.
Armadillo is even more real: they put cameras on the soldiers helmets and filmed a real shooting with the Taliban soldiers. You see the Danish soldiers shooting Taliban soldiers, and you see the Danish solders dragging the dead bodies out of the hiding place. They even show a shell shocked Danish soldier after he was hit.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1640680/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armadillo_(film) The film won the Grand Prix de la Semaine de la Critique at Cannes. It created a huge debate in Denmark about the engagement in Afghanistan.
True Films, as suggested by BioGeek, has an extensive list of documentaries and offers thorough reviews.
Personally I use Movielens.org to keep track of movies - and based on your ratings it'll predict which other movies, including documentaries, you might enjoy.
Some of the documentaries I enjoyed are: - Armadillo (2010). Armadillo centers on a group of soldiers, as do Restrepo, and in particular a mission where Taliban soldiers allegedly are liquidated. The documentary does a good job depicting the chaos of war situations with helmet-mounted cameras. - Sharkwater (2006). To me, much more moving and worrying than The Cove. - Surfwise (2007). A surf movie that isn't about surfing, but instead tells the story of being brought up in an alternative lifestyle.