DangerousTalk

There are many movies about war and films like Platoon, Apocalypse Now, and Full Metal Jacket are among the finest fiction Hollywood has produced dealing with the subject. Severe Clear is not just a film about war; it is a war on film.

Before I get too far into this review, I have something that needs to be disclosed. The writer and director of this film, Kristian Fraga is an old childhood friend of mine. I’ve known him from kindergarten through high school. He has always wanted to be a directed (although I would have thought he would have made a sci-fi film rather than a war film).

Severe Clear is a real life look at the beginnings of the Iraq War (which is still going on) from a Marine who was there at the beginning and on the front line. First Lieutenant Michael Scotti, while deployed in Iraq, took his video camera with him into battle and into the long hot days of sitting around.

His story is real and the images on the screen are real. The dead bodies don’t walk off the set when the camera is turned off. “They say in war bad things happen, ain’t that the mother fucking truth!”

Fraga does a great job in not going into the politics of this war, but the war is what it is and so even trying not to get political, the politics is there nonetheless. It is interesting to see First Lieutenant Scotti’s honest motivation in regard to the war. It was also interesting to see his excitement at finding what he thought were the weapons of mass destruction and his disappointment later when he revealed that they weren’t that massive after all.

The day to day struggles of soldiers is something we don’t see in other war movies. Scotti talks about the boredom, the bacteria, the smells, the difficulty in just going to the bathroom, and most troubling of all the time to think. Add those to the lack of body armor, ineffective tarps, defective equipment, and the lack of ability to understand the natives and we get a glimpse of the troubles of war. The good guys don’t always hit their targets and the bad guys can be almost anyone.

There were some key moments of particular interest to me. The first was when a higher ranking officer informed his men that they would be anointed with oil as some sort of religious warrior custom. It did not seem voluntary and it did seem highly unconstitutional. Another example of the military pushing religion.

There was an incident in which a little girl was killed and that seemed very genuine and really brought home the reality of war; namely the obvious that in war people die. This also was brought to the forefront when during a firefight, a Marine died. There was no time to grieve of the field of battle and all that could be said was that his brains were poring out. When I saw that scene, I thought of that man’s family and friends and how his death was treated so trivially, not because the soldiers were being disrespectful, but because there was no time and they were in shock.

Severe Clear is real war. It is raw and in your face. It is not for the queasy. If you want to know what war is like without actually being in one, too bad that ain’t going to happen. But this movie is the closest thing you’re going to get.

Go to severeclearthemovie.com for cities & showtimes and for more information about the DVD

Filed under: church/state, death, journalism, Politics, Preaching