« The Secret Israeli Raid | Main | Israel's Deterrence »
September 17, 2007
In the Valley of Elah: The Review, Better than the Movie
I have not seen "In the Valley of Elah," Hollywood's latest assault on the American military, but my good friend Dirty Harry over at Libertas has, and he is one brave man. I dunno, maybe he's getting paid for Hazardous Screening Duty. In any case, as I said, I have not seen the film but from Dirty Harry's description I can guarantee no one else in America will bother to see it either. Yup, sounds like the only solid audience for this flick is in Osama's Caliphite Caves in Wackistan and the Al Quada death squads—they can use it as a recruiting tool.
Elah is a near-perfect example of agenda over quality filmmaking. To portray even a single soldier back from the war as grounded, honorable, and worthy of admiration (like 99.9% are) undercuts the anti-war message. But to portray every soldier as unstable and cruel is weak one-dimensional storytelling. It’s the same when it comes to the Iraqi victims. There are two and neither is humanized or even given a face. They’re blurs useful only as props to defame our soldiers. Had the Iraqis been real people the story would’ve been stronger because the horror of the crime would’ve been more real. But Haggis knows that putting a human face on the Iraqi people works against his anti-war sentiments. If we start seeing Iraqis as human we might find it harder to agree with Haggis and abandon them to the death squads and al-Queda.
To read the rest of the review, please click here.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at September 17, 2007 09:33 AM
Comments
Seraphic Secret is private property, that's right, it's an extension of our home, and as such, Karen and I have instituted two Seraphic Rules and we ask commentors to act respectfully.
1. No profanity.2. No Israel bashing. We debate, we discuss, we are respectful. You know what Israel bashing is. The world is full of it. Seraphic Secret is one of the few places in the world that will not tolerate this form of anti-Semitism. That's it. Break either of these rules and you will be banned.
This crap about broken-spirited soldiers is international. The cultural Left, like an opportunistic disease, constantly feeds off of such soap-box soap operas:
The Mark of Cain, a recent UK flick melodramatizes how a unit deals with the death of its CO.
A well-received Spanish novel, The Speed of Light (not to be confused with a Holocaust-related memoir of the same name, btw) piggybacks a vet of a My Lai-type massacre whose tragic demise allows the quasi-autobiographical narrator to find his "voice."
Posted by: Jeremiah at September 17, 2007 10:08 AM
Jeremiah:
The Vietnam era cliche of the broken soldier is so deeply embedded in the so-called Hollywood mind-set that it would take a nuke to dislodge it.
Not that these Hollywood players have ever spent any times with real soldiers.
Posted by: Robert J. Avrech ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.seraphicpress.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at September 17, 2007 12:37 PM
That's so true.
As you know I worked in a coffee shop for a few years. Despite its "slacker" atmosphere, it provided opportunities to chat with military personnel, former and active-duty. Opportunities not just for people-watching, but listening. Good "rehabilitative" j-o-b for an ex-leftist.
Sure, some of the Vietnam vets had suffered (even still suffered) emotional hardships. Two in particular had heartbreaking stories, incl. one who'd turned his ordeal into a novel (Shopping Cart Soldiers; I don't think it's particularly good as a novel, although I hope it was at least therapeutic for him to write....).
The vets who were proud and functioning members of society were, by comparison, you know, ... undramatic. A successful housing contractor who came in every day at 730AM to shoot the breeze w/ his crew, another tradesman I eventually would run into at the gym, and so on. It hit me: I didn't have big Hollywood categories into which to put these guys.
After a couple of years, I made a point of wishing them a happy Veteran's Day, or asking if them if they were doing anything for Memorial Day, etc.
On an optimistic note, a recent 9/11-commemorative video makes exquisite use of Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings. This helps to reclaim it from Oliver Stone having used it to great effect in Platoon.
Posted by: Jeremiah at September 17, 2007 03:39 PM