Controversial war doc 'Armadillo' follows Danish soldiers in Afghanistan

By Sarah Sluis

As an American, it's impossible to watch war documentaries like Restrepo and Gunner Palace without evaluating where you stand politically. These are our troops, and the question "Should we bring our troops home?" constantly comes up. While watching the Danish war documentary Armadillo, I felt more politically agnostic. In Denmark, the film ignited huge controversy, but American viewers will benefit from a slight remove that allows them to reflect on the nature of soldiers in war. Yesterday, I saw the documentary at a screening in New York City that included a panel with director Janus Metz, Danish journalist Louise Stigsgaard Nissen and American journalist/filmmaker Brian Palmer.

Along with a cinematographer, Metz embedded himself with the troops for a six-month deployment in Afghanistan. The government gave him more access than the U.S. government, on the condition that they "security screen" the film. During debriefing sessions, soldiers have an informal rapport with their commanding officers, clearly voicing where they "sucked" and what they did great. To a U.S. audience, that registers as disrespect (or enlightened, by allowing enlisted men to point out things that might go unnoticed), but American journalist/filmmaker Palmer pointed out that U.S. embeds don't have access to such sessions--"The U.S. learned their lesson from Vietnam."

Metz includes very humanizing and sometimes unflattering portraits of the soldiers. They hire a topless stripper for their going-away party. They watch porn on their laptops. He also shows their playful side--wrestling with each other and hot-rodding around on motorbikes within the base walls. Most of these soldiers are intent on seeing action, becoming heroes, but they don't have much of a chance to do so. They mainly go on patrols, trampling through fields in an effort to show force and hold the area. Sometimes they get hit by IEDs, a fate that wounds the greatest amount of men. The lucky ones end up with amputated limbs.

When the soldiers finally see action, they go overboard. In a firefight with the Taliban, they're told that the fighters are directly in front of them, in a ditch. One man throws a grenade, wounding four soldiers, and then the men finish them off with 20 to 30 bullets. This is a grey area: Do you go into a ditch to rescue armed Taliban members, or do you kill the soldiers, who are most likely about to die? None of the soldiers ended up being tried by the military police, but it's interesting how the investigation was opened--a soldier blabbed about the incident to his mother, who contacted the authorities.

Metz's project was originally intended for a television program, but he had higher aspirations. "I didn't see the point of going into these situations for a half hour of television." Technically, the movie is top-notch, with bright, colorful cinematography that puts you straight in the action. Some of the coverage during battles was provided by soldiers wearing cameras on their helmets, giving viewers a "first person camera" experience not unlike a video game. Metz plays with this fact even further, in one case match cutting from an explosion on the soldiers' video-game screen to an explosion in the real world. These men want to play heroes and be part of the mythology of warfare.

Though perhaps this is not the documentary's intent, Armadillo makes clear that this war is unwinnable. The men are prisoners of their own fort. The Taliban will shoot at them during patrols from civilians' houses, and disappear. Make a bomb, and disappear. Their war is one of attrition. The Taliban would never have enough resources to attack the base, but the men cannot go more than 800 to 1000 meters outside before encountering fire.

Just as in the movie Restrepo, the base code-named Armadillo was abandoned some time after filming ended. It was just too hard to hold down.

The Lorber Films release will open on April 15 at the IFC Center in New York City. It won the Grand Prix at the Semaine de la Critique at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival.