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Afghanistan

HotDocs ’22: And Still I Sing

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Directed by Fazila Amiri, And Still I Sing is set against the backdrop of Afghan Star, Afghanistan’s hottest televised singing competition. For the last thirteen years, Afghan Star has provided fresh faces on the pop scene—but all of the winners have been men. Even so, for young women such as Zahra, superstardom is emulated in Star’s judge Aryana Sayeed, Afghanistan’s controversial but most celebrated pop star. Yearning to be like her idol, Zahra enters into the competition with the unlikely dream of following in her footsteps.

Fueled by the battle between feminine courage and toxic masculinity, Still I Sing is a terrifying vision of a world where women matter little and are told to remain hidden in it on the sidelines. Although countless young women have set their sights on stardom, the film also points to the toxicity of a culture that has been dominated by men. Inspired by Sayeed, there is a growing call for women’s rights amongst the people of the nation. However, centuries worth of oppression have made this seemingly simple battle an incredibly treacherous one as artists find themselves subject to death threats and acts of violence. 

In this way, there’s a bravery that is shown within the simple act of performance. Although female performers such as Sayeed are consistently told to be silent, their performances take on a deeper political meaning. Whether it’s a televised performance or live concert, what would be considered in other nations as a night of entertainment becomes a dangerous act of rebellion. For example, as she plans an epic concert during Afghanistan’s upcoming celebration, Sayeed is faced with attacks of violence simply for the way that she challenges the status quo. With an air of empowerment, her voice and persona are representative of the freedom of women’s rights and kick against the darkness. As a result, these performances take on additional meaning by sending a message to the patriarchy that women will not be silenced any longer.

And Still I Sing is now playing at HotDocs ‘22. For screening information, click here.

This Year’s Oscar Nominated Short Docs

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Short films can be good training for future filmmakers, or they can be an artform in themselves. Each year the Academy awards Oscars to three short films: Best Animated Short, Best Live Action Short, and Best Documentary (Short Subject). The nominees for these categories come from around the world and represent excellence, just as all the other films nominated for Oscars do. Each year, prior to the awards, there are programs of the short films that play in select theaters around the country. To see where you can catch one or more of these programs, check Shorts.tv.

The category of Best Documentary (Short Subject) is probably the shorts category that is most available to viewers in that many of these films stream or have played on public TV. Here is my take of the films nominated for Best Documentary (Short Subject) this year.

Audible. (40 minutes, USA). A football player and his friends at the Maryland School for the Deaf struggle with the end of a winning streak, the suicide of a friend, relationships, and facing going into the world. Director Matt Ogens gives us a coming-of-age story that is at once universal and specific. For more on this film, see my review from its Netflix release. Audible is available to stream on Netflix.

Lead Me Home. (40 minutes, USA). Homelessness has reached emergency proportions in many places. Directors Pedro Kos and John Shenk takes us to L.A., San Francisco, and Seattle to see into some of the encampments and shelters and to meet a few of the unhoused people and hear their stories and struggles. On any given night, half a million people in America experience homelessness. The film is a good way of putting these people in front of us. Solutions, of course, would take far more than a short film to examine. Lead Me Home is available to stream on Netflix.

The Queen of Basketball. (22 minutes, USA). Lusia Harris was the greatest woman basketball player of her time. In college she won three national championships. She scored the first basket ever in Olympic women’s basketball (and won a silver medal). She was drafted in the seventh round by the NBA’s New Orleans Jazz—the first woman officially drafted in the NBA. She was the first Black woman inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. But so few people know about her. Director Ben Proudfoot allows Lucy to narrate her own story along with archival clips. There was no WNBA at the time, so she had nowhere to go after college, which created problems. [Lusia Harris died in January of this year.]

Three Songs for Benazir. (22 minutes, Afghanistan). Shaista is recently married and trying to find a way to make a living in the displaced persons camps of Kabul. He would like to join the National Army, but his family won’t agree to care for his wife or offer the guarantees required by the Army. HIs only other option is to take part in the poppy harvest. It is a reminder of the difficult lives people faced during the war in Afghanistan. Three Songs for Benazir is available to stream on Netflix.

When We Were Bullies. (36 minutes, USA/Germany). Director Jay Rosenblatt recalls an incident from fifth grade in Brooklyn when he took part in bullying a classmate. Looking back fifty years later, he contacts other former classmates and their teacher for their recollections. The film is both a study in the dynamics that lead children to bully each other, and a way of working through his guilt for his part in the event.

My favorites among these films are When We Were Bullies (which was my favorite short from the AFI Docs festival) because it reminds me of the ways I bullied and was bullied at that age, and Lead Me Home for making homelessness not just the tent encampments we drive by, but the people in those tents.

Photos courtesy of Shorts.tv.

Afghanistan & Abortion & Ivermectin, Oh My!

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The war in Afghanistan comes to a controversial end. Abortion is again in the news due to an unusual Texas law. Ivermectin hits center stage in Covid politics thanks to Joe Rogan.

How should Christians think through such varied yet pressing news items, events and issues? How is the nature of God a guide when it comes to having a “Christian take” on things? Find out in this new episode of the Your Sunday Drive podcast!

Also, a quick pop culture minute generates a metric ton of mentions, including Smallville, The Golden Girls, The White Lotus, Hades, Dune, Star Trek, Star Wars, David Lynch, Twin Peaks, The Green Knight, The Thin Red Line, The Fountain, and Ted Lasso.

Come along for Your Sunday Drive – quick conversation about current events, politics, pop culture and more, from the perspective of a couple of guys trying to follow Jesus.

Hosts: Matt Hill and Nate Polzin. Presented by the Church in Drive of Saginaw, MI, as often as possible. Please visit churchindrive.com and facebook.com/thechurchindrive

The Cuban – Jazzy Memories

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“We can’t change the past. All we have left is our future.” The past and future are not so much what Sergio Navarretta’s The Cuban focuses on. Rather it calls us to find life in the present.

Mina (Ana Golja) is a young Afghan-Canadian pre-med student who is working at a nursing home. She is tasked with feeding one of the patients who has Alzheimer’s. Luis Garcia (Louis Gossett Jr.) spends his day staring blankly. Because he reacts violently in frustration, he doesn’t eat with the other residents. Mina notices a poster on his wall of a Cuban jazz musician. She remembers that music from her grandfather’s home when she was a child. She notes that as she hums music that Luis becomes a bit more animated. She begins to bring Cuban jazz records to play for him and each time he becomes more engaged. Soon she’s bringing him Cuban food as well. She’s skirting the rules, but it is paying off. She soon discovers that Luis was a famed Cuban musician.

But when we see Mina’s homelife with her aunt (Shohreh Aghdashloo), we discover that Mina is less interested in being a doctor than her aunt. It is the aunt’s dream that she expects Mina to live out. She is concerned about Mina’s future, but not with Mina’s desires. (Mina is more interested in music.) It is the aunt who voices the quote above. The aunt had been a doctor in Afghanistan, but now is an administrator at the nursing home. As an immigrant, she was not credentialed to practice medicine, but she did the best she could to provide a home and opportunity for Mina. She may feel a bit like a martyr for her sacrifice.

But the contrast is really when we see Mina’s relationship with Luis. Here is a man who has seemingly lost his past, and has no hope of a future. With neither, he is stuck in a present of emptiness. The music and food that Mina brings him begins to draw out his memories—some happy, some not. It is the interplay of Luis’s past and Mina’s possible future that creates a meaningful present.

The film is a little bit cluttered with side stories of Mina entering into a romance, and with battles with the nursing home staff (which are a bit stereotypical). Those subplots take away some needed exploration of Mina’s memories of her family and how that impacts her situation vis-à-vis her aunt.

The film does offer some wonderful bits of Cuban jazz. Some of those involve getting into Luis’s mind as the music awakens him, taking him back in time to New York clubs, and also cruising in Havana. The music adds a sense of joy and life to the film, that focuses so much on people who are stuck in a life that is not their choosing. But throughout the film we find that the music, so based in the past, is what brings meaning into the lives of these characters.

The Cuban is available on Virtual Cinema through local arthouses.

Photos courtesy of Brainstorm Media.

Sacrifice in the Sand: 1on1 with Rod Lurie (THE OUTPOST)

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War is hell.

Though that may sound cliché in, there’s no question that any war requires incredible sacrifice that can be difficult to understand for those who have never been involved in the military. Still, over the years, this has not stopped filmmakers from attempting to bring the intensity and tragedy of war to life on screen. 

With his latest film, The Outpost, director Rod Lurie (The Contender) may have come closer than others to depicting reality with his incredible and intense look at the famed Battle of Kamdesh, the bloodiest engagement in the Afghanistan War. When he was first offered the script, Lurie says that he found this particular project too enticing to pass up, especially considering his own military background.

“As a military guy, I’m living every day on military websites and [I have] my military friends on Facebook and on Twitter, [so] I was aware of the story,” Lurie begins. “Certainly, I was aware of The Battle of Kamdesh. It’s absolutely within military folklore at this point. So, when it was brought to me, there was just no doubt I was going to do this. It was, by the way, brought to me by the first director of it, Sam Raimi. Sam had decided to drop out as director and was not going to produce it. Although he didn’t ultimately end up producing it, I first heard about it as a film project in his office with his head of development—a guy named Paul Merryman—and the film’s two writers, Paul Tamasy and Eric Johnson. I knew there was just no way [that] I wasn’t going to do this film.”

The Outpost tells the story of Bravo Troop 3-61 CAV, a small unit of U.S. soldiers left alone at the remote Combat Outpost Keating, who are tasked with helping maintain the peace and build relationships with the locals. Trapped at the bottom of a deep valley between three mountains in Afghanistan, the division sits exposed and faces daily attacks from insurgents. Then, when an overwhelming force of Taliban fighters attacks them, the unit finds themselves faced with the impossible task of defending their station and staying alive. 

Relentless and unyielding, The Outpost is a visceral experience that makes the viewer feel as though they’re in the middle of the firefight. While he may have never been directly involved in combat himself, Lurie also argues his passion for this project extends from his desire to honour his brothers-in-arms.

“If I’m really being honest, it’s my lack of experience that made me want to make this film,” he confesses. “I graduated in 1984 from West Point, the United States military Academy. [It was a] tough four years. I graduated into a peace time and served in Germany. I was with an air defense unit. I was never on a battlefield and never had a bullet pass my head. I never fired a bullet at an enemy. My life was never in danger in any real way but that’s not true of my classmates. Many of my classmates have decorations that they wear on their chest from their valorous actions and from being in the field of battle. When I go back to my reunions at West point, I’m one of the guys who wasn’t in battle. It’s not a great feeling, to be honest with you. I always knew I wanted to make a war film, but not just any war film. It had to be about the war that my brothers were fighting in. So, if I couldn’t be on a battlefield with him, then I was going to honor them and this was the best way to do it… [It’s] the only way that I can do it right now, I think.”

Of course, with any film of this nature, preparing for the role would be an intense process. Though some of the cast were military veterans, Lurie notes that the actors who were experiencing basic training for the first time found themselves pushed much harder than they had expected.

“I really had to put these guys through the ringer,” Lurie recalls. “A lot of the guys were already vets. They were soldiers and they knew how to hold an M4. They knew how to fire a weapon. They knew how to move. But a lot of these guys, they’re like trained at Carnegie Mellon University. They are not soldiers. So, I sent them to basic training with our military guys…. This was not easy for a lot of these guys. I mean, there are many times at lunch where they would come and they would sit with me and there would be a tear rolling down their eye, going ‘I didn’t expect this humiliation. I didn’t expect this physical toughness.’ I had to train them properly, so that was very, very, very difficult for them.” 

“Now, [then there’s] somebody like Caleb Landry Jones, who plays Ty Carter, the medal of honor recipient, in the film,” he continues. “I’ve never seen a guy more dedicated than this kid. It’s just incredible. When I first met Caleb, he was exactly what I thought I was going to be, which is like this hippie type. He’s as Olive Oyl (from the Popeye series) and he’s hairy down to his [butt]. It’s like the opposite of the sort of buff, tough bald-headed [guy] who was Ty Carter… But I knew that Caleb was a great actor and, from speaking to people about him, I knew that he was dedicated and he would somehow transform himself into this guy. In fact, I sent him to meet Ty Carter. Ty called me and he said, ‘Rod, this guy is going to work out’. He was really nervous, but… Caleb transformed himself. That also meant militarily. So, he took it very, very seriously when the military guys trained them. In fact, Caleb’s brother, a guy named John Jones – is a Marine who lost both his legs in battle and he came to Bulgaria and trained with his brother. So, there was lots and lots of an attempt at authenticity in this film. I think we nailed it, in the end.”

Asked about the response he’s gotten from those involved that have seen the film, Lurie is grateful for the overwhelming support that he has received from the veterans and their families. However, that should not be surprising. To his credit, The Outpost works hard to depict The Battle of Kamdesh as realistically as possible. In fact, one of the most amazing aspects of the film is the fact that some of the survivors themselves are in the film, in some cases playing themselves. 

“Not only have they seen the film, some of them are in the film,” he asserts. “Daniel Rodriguez, who fought in the mortar pit, plays himself in the movie. Not only that, but he had to relive for us the death of his best friend. He actually staged it for us. He told us exactly how it happened, which was obviously a hugely traumatic experience for him, but he was a good soldier and he fell apart after he did that for us. We had a screening for many of the survivors of the battle and for the families of the fallen last October in Washington DC. That had to have been among the most emotional nights of my life. Certainly, that’s pretty remarkable. It was really something. What these families realized was that their loved ones, their names, will live on now. They don’t just disappear into the ether. Their names matter.”

Though Lurie recognizes the value of every man who served in Kamdesh, he chooses to frame the narrative in segments that focus on the unit’s rotating (and brief) commanders. Given their dramatic differences in approach, Lurie felt that this would be a good way to highlight them and how their varying styles to leadership affected the unit.

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“The commanders were targeted by the Taliban, so I thought that was one way to sort of honour them. One after another, they either die or have to leave the outpost. They also have different styles of command, which I thought was very interesting. So, the story sort of changes as we go along, based on the leadership styles of the commanders. I just thought that it would be a very effective form of storytelling.”

One interesting aspect of the film is the fact that, though they live and serve together, there are no guarantees that the troops will come together until they’re on the field of battle. Popularized over the years as the ‘band of brothers’ mindset, Lurie believes that, while may be willing to sacrifice themselves for one another, the truth about the relationships between men off the field may have become overstated. 

“I think you’ve latched onto something really, really interesting. You’re right. They are not friends,” he points out. “In fact, sometimes they’re actually like almost enemies. They will fight in the barracks, but they do learn that, in the field of battle, they’re all brothers. They are absolutely brothers. The real Ty Carter will tell you how unpopular he was among the other soldiers. Nobody liked him. He didn’t like anybody, but he saved a lot of lives. He put his life on the line in a very dramatic way for at least for one soldier and probably for several more. That is what it boils down to. These guys that are in Afghanistan right now, I’m talking about troops for all nations, they’re there to survive more than to do anything else. That means being there for your brother. It’s really simple.” 

“That’s not a good enough reason to have troops over there, in my opinion. It’s not a good enough reason. During the Second World War, you ask every soldier why they’re there, [and] they’d all have the same answer. You’re going to stop Hitler. I don’t know that if you asked any soldier at any war after that why are they are there that they would have the answer. The closest common denominator [as an] answer would be ‘to keep my brother alive’. That’s the reason that they’re there. It’s not good enough, but it is what it is.”

In addition, while other famed war films such as Saving Private Ryan and 1917 choose to emphasize the gravity of their specific mission at hand, The Outpost opts to instead focus on survival as the mission itself. For Lurie, this level of sacrifice was one of the most inspirational aspects of the project.

According to Lurie, “Scott Eastwood, who plays Sergeant Clint Romesha says [in the film that], ‘Our mission is what it’s always been.’ Then he says, ‘To survive’. That is indeed what all but eight of them did. They survived. But there’s something also very inspirational about that. This movie is not a morose thing at all. You will likely come out of this very moved, but also very inspired by the human spirit and what the human calculus is capable of. When I was at West point, what I was told was once you think you have exhausted everything, you’re only 10% of the way there. That’s something you see in The Outpost.

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For full audio of our interview with Rod Lurie, click here.

The Outpost is currently streaming on iTunes, Google Play and other VOD sites.

Monday at AFIFest 2018

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Although I’ve seen my share of comedies at AFIFEST Presented by Audi, it seems that film festivals often show darker films than many people are used to. That is in part because they are made not so much to sell tickets to a large audience as to bring a story to life that the filmmaker wants to tell. My choices for Monday all had a bit of darkness to them, even when they were showing hope.

Angels are Made of Light is a documentary by James Longley about a school in Kabul, Afghanistan. After years (actually decades) of conflict, the educational system in this old part of town is in ruins—literally. Even as a new school is being built, the walls in the old school are falling down. We meet some of the students (mostly boys, although there is a section that focuses on girls) that are trying to get an education, but the realities of their lives make it hard. Many need to work to help their families. The film weaves in some of the history of Afghanistan and its many wars.

Romanian director Ioana Uricaru gives us Lemonade, a story set in the U.S. about a woman trying to get her green card. She has married a man (For love? We don’t know.) and brought her young son over. But a corrupt immigration official and various other challenges begin to ruin the life she has made here and hopes to establish. It offers a look at the desperation that many face as they try to find a life in America.

Playing with Lemonade was a short, Desert Rats, by Shaz Bennett, a story of a girl whose father was abandoned as a child in the Utah desert by a polygamous father. She returns to the desert to remember him.

 

From Quebec comes Genesis from director Philippe Lesage. It is the story of two siblings as they struggle with love, belonging, and alienation. Guillaume (Thoédore Pellerin) is something of the class clown in school, but he is often the odd man out in social situations. His older sister, Charlotte (Noée Abita) leaves a safe, but unexciting relationship, but in her new relationships she is vulnerable both emotionally and physically. Both are seeking to understand how to deal with their yearnings and find someone to love. The last half hour of the film switches to a summer camp with a young boy and girl in their first experience of young love. That add-on is meant to remind us of the simplicity and awkwardness of youthful yearnings, but really distracts from the more powerful stories of Guillaume and Charlotte.

 

War Machine – What Makes a Successful Satire?

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War Machine is the newest Netflix original film from director David Michod, starring Brad Pitt, Topher Grace, Emory Cohen, John Magaro, and Scoot McNairy. David Michod is best known for directing Animal Kingdom, a 2010 crime story from Australia with a hit cast including Joel Edgerton, Guy Pearce, and Ben Mendelsohn.

Going into this movie, I knew that it was a satirical take on a nonfiction book about an army general but nothing about the true events surrounding this story. I’m generally intrigued by most true stories no matter how ‘off the beaten path’ they may be. Knowing that they actually happened, films based on true stories always hit me harder than others and I usually feel that I learned something in the process.

After watching War Machine, I wanted to do some research on the book it was based from in order to get more background context. Entitled “The Operators – The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America’s War in Afghanistan”, the book is written by Michael Hastings, a journalist at Rolling Stone who accompanied General Stanley McChrystal (the real life General that the film is based upon) to assist in gathering help with their war efforts. Michael Hastings was present when the team openly bashed the Obama administration and produced a piece about his time with General McChrystal, ultimately leading to McChrystal’s firing.

The first thing that stood out to me within the film was Brad Pitt. (No, not like that!) Pitt plays the role of General Glen McMahon, the character based on the real life General Stanley McChrystal. Throughout the film, Pitt has a large focus on physical acting in the way he walks, talks, runs, uses his hands, and moves his face. Initially, I appreciated the way he was playing this role. I typically have a lot of respect for the way he dives into his characters but it didn’t take long for me to think that it was very overdone.  Still, I suppose, this is where the satirical aspect of the film kicks in.

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The other obviously satirical character was President Karzai, played by Ben Kingsley, who was portrayed as a complete joke. Both General McMahon and President Karzai are downright caricatures – obvious exaggerations of who the real life inspirations would have been.

Besides McMahon and Karzai, all other characters seem completely normal and serious. I think this is where my confusion with this film began. I didn’t know where they were taking the film, nor what tone they were expecting the audience to take from it. There was a very blurry line between being a serious war film and a satire.

One interesting element is that they seem to be intentionally making (then) President Barack Obama look bad. The scene in front of the airplane made it seem like Obama only wanted a photo op with General McMahon and no actual face time as originally anticipated. I found this to be an interesting way to approach the addition of President Obama into the film. As mentioned above, the bashing of the Obama administration by McMahon and his team led to McMahon’s firing. They could have put Obama in a more positive light, but perhaps they wanted us to see the Obama that General McMahon saw in order to build that story line.

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In my opinion, the best part of this movie was RJ Cyler, who played Andy Moon. He was in most of my favourite scenes. I was immediately interested in him when he spoke up during General McMahon’s address to his new troops:

“…it seems to me that we’re all here with our guns and (expletive) trying to convince these people that deep down we’re actually really nice guys. And I don’t know how to do that, Sir, when every second one of them, or every third one of them, or every tenth one of them is trying to (expletive) kill me, Sir. Cause I’m a marine. Cause we’re marines. And it seems like now they’re handing out medals for heroically not being a marine, Sir. I’m confused, is what I’m trying to say, Sir.”

This scene was fantastic. I’m definitely looking forward to what RJ Cyler will do in the future.

This particular scene really got me thinking about the war efforts in Afghanistan. Certainly, the main focus of the war was to remove the Taliban from power in the wake of the devastating 9/11 attacks. During this scene, another marine was discussing what exactly they were doing there. He says “to protect the people from the enemy”. How interesting and simultaneously heartbreaking to think about how difficult and tragic this must have been. The marines had to determine who was a civilian and who was an enemy, not knowing whether someone may try to kill them or if they were innocent bystanders. On the flip side, think about strange troops invading your town and shooting at your family. To those locals, the troops are the enemy. I feel so contradictory about it all. I’m sure we all remember hearing about the war in Afghanistan on the news but were barely shaken by hearing about it because it didn’t directly affect us. This is almost a tragedy in and of itself.

Moving back to the cast, John Magaro and Topher Grace played the secondary roles of Cory Staggart and Matt Little respectively.  I really enjoyed their additions to the film and would have loved to see them in a few more scenes.

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An unexpected but welcomed addition to the cast was Tilda Swinton, who played a brief role as a German politician who burns General McMahon during a presentation where he is speaking. She did a phenomenal job with her accent and monologues, as you would expect from the always intriguing Ms. Swinton.

Cameron from Ferris Bueller shows up too! I’ll pay the guy enough respect to call him by his real name, Alan Ruck. Who, by the way, has three new projects in the works in the next year and a half!

One more random and very brief appearance is made in the last scene of the movie by none other than Russell Crowe. He plays Bob White, who replaces General McMahon after he gets fired. Interestingly, Russell Crowe is not credited. And his appearance seems to open the door for a possible second installment.

Soundtracks are a fascinating element to film and they can either make it or break it. The War Machine soundtrack was all over the place. Anything from hip hop to classical. Standard background score to Lady Gaga. This could be attributed to the satirical nature of the film, so it’s difficult for me to fault it but I spent a lot of time during the movie wondering what path they were going on with the music.

As a whole, I think this movie missed the mark. I must admit, my exposure to satirical film is not vast, and that could be a large reason why it wasn’t my favourite. Personally, I thought it was disjointed and confusing. I have spoken to some fans of satire that share my feelings on this film. However, some fans online are comparing this film to one of the great satires, “Dr. Strangelove” by Stanley Kubrick.

So this begs the question: What makes a successful satire? Are satires best when they’re more obvious or subtle? I have always assumed satires were more like comedies, and were just poking fun. Although this is sometimes the case, it’s interesting to see how subtle some satire can be, as I have undoubtedly learned from watching War Machine.

My bottom line – I recommend watching this movie if you have a deep appreciation for satire, as you will likely grasp this movie far better than I.  If you aren’t as much of a satire fan, I would pass on it.

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A War – Do Moral Standards Apply in Battle?

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In the chaos of battle, mistakes can be made. Oscar-nominated A War looks at some of the consequences of such mistakes on a very personal level. The film is from Danish director Tobias Lindholm who previously made a quite personal story about piracy in A Hijacking. Both stories focus on the people directly involved as well as others who are affected by the events.

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Claus Petersen (Pilou Asbæk) is a Danish army company commander stationed in Afghanistan. He is a well-regarded officer. His wife (Tuva Novotny) is struggling at home trying to hold things together with their three children who miss their father. One day on patrol, Petersen and his men get caught in a firefight. Eventually he calls for a rocket against a building he thinks is occupied by the enemy. Sometime later, investigators begin asking questions because the house only had civilians. Eventually, Petersen is returned home—good for his family, but bad because he must face criminal charges and possibly jail for killing civilians. Where is the truth about what really happened? Who is to be held responsible when such a mistake is made? Should things that happen in the heat of battle even be judged by standards of normal morality?

Tobias doesn’t seek to deal with these questions at abstract levels, but through the eyes of Claus, his wife, and children and then, through the courtroom scenes, with society’s expectations of those involved in warfare. In an interview, Lindholm noted an appreciation for American films about the Vietnam War. He is not so much interested in whether Denmark’s involvement in the war is right or wrong, but what effect the country’s participation in the war has on their collective conscious.

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The film divides into three sections: a war film, a family story, and a courtroom drama. Yet, the concept of morality is at the center of all of them. This is not about a persecution. In fact, Claus is as appalled by what happened as anyone. Even his children are affected by the events that happened half a world away. At one point his daughter asks, “Is it true you killed children?” How should he try to answer such a question? What responsibility does he have to be honest—to the court or to his daughter?

A War offers viewers a chance to consider the extent we should apply concepts of morality in questions of war. But the film is not just about what is acceptable to do in battle, but also what responsibility the society has in the acts of soldiers who are there on our behalf. It is also about what responsibility we have to those soldiers, even if they may have done things that are questionable under the stress of battle.

Photos courtesy of Magnolia Pictures

 

No Greater Love – Interview with Justin Roberts

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Chaplain Justin Roberts
Chaplain Justin Roberts

While at the Newport Beach Film Festival, I visited with Justin Roberts, whose film No Greater Love was one of the festival selections. A former Army chaplain, Roberts made this documentary based on footage he took while deployed in Afghanistan and then meeting later with some of the men he served with. It focuses on what the unit went through while deployed and what it was like when they returned home.

At the beginning of the film you reference your own depression that you were dealing with. How are you doing now?

I’m doing a lot better. The film has helped me to process a lot of stuff, because you’re watching it again and again and again. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, a lot of it is experiencing a traumatic event and not processing it—not fully coming to peace with the moment and what happened. For me, the film kind of forces the process. I think that’s the way I’ve been throughout my life. Any time I’m going through something difficult I’m probably going to do some sort of artistic project—start writing something or working on something. So the film was just another one of those for me. When I’m dealing with something difficult I try to see it through a different lens. Plus, I have an amazing wife and she won’t let me sink too low. She’s always carried me through a lot of that stuff. I’m doing good now.

In the film you don’t do a lot of labeling. You don’t say “This is PTSD. This is Traumatic Brain Injury. This is Moral Injury.” You just kind of have a gestalt, a mixture of everything.

I think we have like an evolution of definitions for the reactions, but so much of these reactions bleed over into each other. It’s really hard to pinpoint and define. We can say what TBI is, and MTBI, but that’s never just the one issue. Usually if they have TBI they also have some form of PTSD or Moral Injury. So part of our problem in dealing with these things is that you try to put it on one shelf and just deal with that one shelf, and then that care process doesn’t work fully. You have a person who’s dealing with a litany of issues. So poly-trauma then becomes a better approach—dealing with the whole person, a holistic approach. I didn’t get too heavy in the film on that. I just wanted to touch on it, because I could make a documentary about any one of those things, and not tell the whole story. So that was my approach, at least on that.

ngl chapel

I believe theology is something that’s best done with pencil.

And humility.

I’m sure the deployment was a challenging time of you trying to do theology. How about doing this film? How did making the film give you things to think about theologically that might not have been there before?

The first thing that I wanted to express through the film, and the reason we titled the film No Greater Love that comes from John 15:13: “No greater love has any man than this that he lays down his life for his friends.” Now, for me, growing up in ministry and also going to seminary, I knew that at a theological level—this conception of Christ dying on a cross. I knew it and of course it was very deeply personal. But this was the first physical experience that I had of people I knew risking their lives and dying for people that I loved.

So this was the first flesh and blood example that I had—that I could put my hands on that person even as I was praying for that person. This was a man who put his life on the line for me and he’s about to go meet his maker. That changed my concept radically on that idea of sacrifice. It made me appreciate it so much more because when I’m losing that friend and he’s gone I understood what he did for me at some level, and then understanding God’s sacrifice—what Jesus did on the cross—it just magnifies it. I don’t think in America today that we have a concept of sacrifice.

We have it on such a thin level. We’re inconvenienced when the line is too long at Starbucks or we deal with our problems that generally are not that heavy. To dive deeper in understanding the sacrifice on the cross, it helps to understand the sacrifice being made by people as well—the martyrs that are throughout our world, and those people who are on the front lines, and those first responders who risk their lives every single day, and how we appreciate them and help them and support them is a direct relationship about how we truly feel about the sacrifice Christ made on the cross.

We have veterans right now who are struggling—struggling—and how much is the church becoming a part of that solution? It’s not. Not on the whole. Most of them aren’t even aware that there’s a problem. So if they say they fully understand the sacrifice that happened on the cross, but they’re not willing to just go across the street and help that veteran who put his life on the line for their religious liberties, they don’t understand it. They just don’t. They don’t appreciate it. If they did, they’d at least be willing to walk across that street and help that guy, who is now mentally broken because of the sacrifices he made on their behalf. They say they appreciate the sacrifice, but they aren’t even willing to do minimal ministry for that guy.

It breaks my heart. I didn’t realize it until I became a chaplain and came back and started down this road and reach out to the church. We get some love from some amazing ministries and amazing churches, but as a whole it’s a hard road ahead. It’s not because they’re apathetic. They’re just ignorant to what happened. So that’s the point of the film: to raise awareness, because I truly do feel that when the church becomes aware of a problem, they do react to it. They just need to wake up and realize there is a problem.

I sensed in the film that there was a kind of incarnational aspect. As you were saying, you understand more about sacrifice that God made through seeing the sacrifice these people made. And although none of these people are fully divine…

No, they were rough guys.

I noticed one scene in particular where you were talking about the First Sergeant who would say to you, “How’s Jesus today?

“How’s Jesus doing?” with a dip in his mouth.

I assume you realize he was asking how you were doing because you were for him Jesus. You were the incarnation.

Uh-huh. It’s like that physical representative of God. It’s so funny because these are guys who are rough, wounded, foul, but willing to put their lives on the line for others. They have a concept of eternity, you know, it’s just sometimes a very rough one and a very loose one. Yeah, every single time I saw him, “How’s Jesus doing?” and he’d have that big chaw in his mouth. An amazing guy. The soldiers loved him. It was such a painful hit when he died because everybody lost a father that day.

The way I approached ministry was relational and to find the place in the middle we can all sit at and to love people there. Through that relationship the gospel’s best delivered. That was my approach in both the ministry and the film. The film is a middle place. It’s not heavy-handed religious. It’s not proselytizing. But it is expressing the faith in an organic way. The hope is that it’s not a film that’s going to minister to Christians. It’s not a doctor that’s going to heal the healthy. The job of the film is to get Christians awake to a need, and then for them to become ministers to the sick who are in their area but are invisible to them right now.

We have thirty-six suicides per day. We would not have 36 suicides per day if the church were doing something about it. They have the resources to connect, care, and love. They have the power to bring the gospel to a broken people who are not a thousand miles away, but are right next door to them. And they’re not doing it. The number wouldn’t be there if they were. This is not a far off ministry. It costs nothing. But it’s a people group that is difficult. They generally don’t want to go to church. They’ve been baptized by fire. It’s not that we’re doing a charity for them. We owe them a magnificent debt. And we are in some small way paying them back by simply reaching out, loving on them, and helping them. That’s my personal feelings.

ngl memory

You mentioned last night in the Q&A that you started this connection with them even before the deployment in an effort to build connections that would prevent suicides afterwards.

It’s all about the relationships. If you look at a lot of veteran charities right now, a lot of them are working to raise awareness of the veteran suicide issue. Part of the problem is their focusing all their mind, money, time, and energy on awareness, in large part because they’re not really sure what to do about it. It’s a very difficult, mysterious curse that’s hanging over our veteran population. Now what I saw in my unit was the best way to approach it was not trying to force 100% of the population through an individual psychiatric care program. I’m not saying that psychiatric care does not have a place. It does. But the problem is you can’t target the people who need it and most of them aren’t going to go. If you understand the culture, you understand that.

You have to understand the tribe that you’re trying to treat. Most of them are not going to say they have an issue. And then most of them are also not going to go get care. We can work for 100 years trying to change that culture and meanwhile we’ll have 36 suicides per day. So the best way to approach it is to reach out, build that community, get people interconnected, building up strong relationships, so that way when they do have a problem they’re going to start talking to people they’re connected with and know aren’t going to judge them, aren’t going to think less of them, just going to be there and love them. All these guys and gals, they have amazing BS detectors. They know when someone’s legitimately caring for them or not—or just out to try to sell them something. So it has to a legitimate relationship, a selfless, loving relationship. When they have that, they may well have that bridge to get care. If they don’t have that, there’s not a shot. There’s not hope. And a lot of those guys, if they do have that bridge—a person who’s caring for them and loving them—they’ll consider going to a counselor or psychologist. It usually takes some love and encouragement. So the goal is build the community, build the tribe, get them plugged in, then there’s a shot. That’s what I saw work in battalion, so that’s what we’re trying to do on a national level.

You mentioned that you couldn’t carry a gun, so you carried your camera. What was your plan for what you were filming?

I had this loose idea of doing a documentary, but not full, and definitely not this. If you know me, generally, I’m working on something. I’m just a project person. I’m generally going to be writing something or working on some sort of film thing. At the time I thought it would be cool to capture some of these moments. I wanted to take pictures to send back to the moms and grandmas. I really did have the largest grandma and mom fan club on Facebook. It was a way for them to stay connected to their soldier. It also became a way for me to connect in to the guys on Facebook, because that became about a third of the counselings I was doing down range.

I couldn’t be everywhere at once. We were in four or five different locations at any one time. So for me to be able to take on counseling with a guy that day, sometimes it would have to be through Facebook. So if I took his picture and his mom liked it, he’d want to see it, and on Facebook we’d become friends and it would open up the door for the counseling. So there was a ministry strategy to it. It evolved into what it currently is. I never saw how the ministry that I did within the unit was going to marry the film until I got a little further along. I thought I could use this to do this ministry, to get guys connected. Then when I saw how that got married together it became the mission, and it’s led me here.

I saw you got some nice awards from festivals. What’s the plan ahead for the film?

We’ve gone through I don’t know how many festivals now. We’ve gotten eight or nine, and we did a Congressional screening for the House VA Committee. We’re looking at doing a screening at the Pentagon and the White House. But what all this is leading towards is a theatrical release of the film, and to use that to help raise awareness and support for veteran charities and veteran ministries, to encourage churches to take on veteran ministries and to create this conversation across the country. If we don’t raise awareness—if people don’t get involved—if veterans, service members, and civilians don’t get involved in working for a solution, the number’s never going to go down.

It’s only by getting everybody actually involved and aware and acting that we can actually do something about it. So this is that one shot we have. There is no other national program. There’s no other national initiative and there’s no clear concept on how to achieve real results in the way we can help them. I’m functioning on the theory that if we get people connected in real relationships and really talking we can do something about it. All of this is to test that theory. It’s something I’ve seen work at battalion level, then we need to see if it can work at a national level.

We’re looking at pushing it out to theaters. It all depends on where the community support is. If we get communities reaching out to us, then we know we can bring the film there. That’s why the important thing is that they start connecting with us on Facebook or email, then we know we can bring the film there.

Photos courtesy of NLGFilm.com

 

Monday at Newport Beach Film Festival

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Red-Mountain-kiss

The Chinese film Red Mountain is a minor family saga, told by a son about his father and grandfather who served as mountain rangers in a remote section of China. When the (then) young father wants to leave to go to college and see the world, the grandfather forbids it, forcing the younger to stay and take over his role on the mountain. For years, he resents his missed opportunity and, when he has a son of his own, he resents being away from him. He seems trapped in an unhappy life. But in time he discovers that this mountain is a part of his life and wishes to pass that relationship on to his son as well. It is a bit melodramatic at times, but it exhibits a love for the natural world and our place within it.

Courtesy of Music Box Films
Courtesy of Music Box Films

The creator of All in the Family, Maude, The Jeffersons and several other amazing and successful TV shows is the subject of Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You. There was a time when he had six shows in production at one time. This film chronicles his career and speaks of his influence on the medium. It also touches a bit on his activism outside of TV. Now in his nineties, he is still active and much of the film consists of his own memories of the events. Even with an hour and a half, his career had so many successes that it’s hard to spend much time on any of them. The clips that are shown are some of the best in the history of TV. This film is part of the PBS American Masters series and will be in theaters in July.

Courtesy of NGLFilm.com
Courtesy of NGLFilm.com

When Army Chaplain Justin Roberts experienced a post-deployment depression, he reunited with many from the unit he had served with in Afghanistan to talk about their experience there, and the difficulties involved in coming home. His conversations with these comrades makes up the bulk of No Greater Love. That deployment was a difficult one for that unit. They lost several soldiers in very strenuous battles. As he interviews them in the film, they relive some very emotional moments. This is about more than just the PTSD that many must deal with; it seeks to get to the hearts of these soldiers and their commitment to one another. In the Q&A after the film, Roberts noted that in part this grew out of an attempt to cut the number of veteran suicides that began even before the deployment. The film is very powerful and moving film with intense battle scenes that Roberts filmed while with the unit.