True War Stories, with Proceeds Going to Military Charities

Civilians often (rather insensitively) request war stories from veterans, but those who lived to tell them can be hesitant to do so, because they aren’t sure if they will truly be understood or appreciated. However, a fellow veteran comics writer like Khai Krumbhaar can relate to their experiences. She and Alex de Campi edited True War Stories, a graphic anthology of wartime experiences now available in tradepaper, the proceeds from which go to military charities, including the USO.

For the most part, the contributors wanted to tell stories that were meaningful to them, for personal and even idiosyncratic reasons, but they are not necessarily historical turning points. For instance, probably the two best tales are Krumbhaar’s “Rebels of Macadamia” and Matt Moores’ “Man Overboard,” because they illustrate the hyper-reality of war, but with a slyly dark sense of humor. Frankly, they remind me of the [maybe not-so] slightly off-color anecdotes I heard from my late Naval aviator father.

Fittingly, the Navy is represented in “Man Overboard,” which turns out to be the most ribald yarn of the lot—and dad would be so proud. Peter Krause’s art also nicely suits the characters’ hardnosed and rowdy attitudes.

Krumbhaar’s “Rebels of Macadamia” is the sort of story that shows how war warps the margins of reality, in comical and even macabre ways. It captures a hidden war within the war, waged by Krumbhaar and her army colleagues against the rats in one of Saddam former palaces. The winners would enjoy the white chocolate macadamia cookies they both coveted.

They stakes are considerably higher in Robert Kent’s “My Vietnam Story,” which is well-served by Dave Acosta’s gritty and powerful art. If you thought Krypto was heroic in Superman, wait to you see Maverick, a German shepherd service dog, who foils a potentially calamitous Viet Cong attack. “War stories” do not get much more “war” than this one.

Several contributions illustrate the dividends paid by rigorous and repetitive military training, such as Ian Eishen’s “Joint Team,” methodically chronicling the Navy SEALs tracking a kidnapped Filipino girl, running reconnaissance missions, and carefully planning the rescue operation to be conducted by the Filipino SEAL team, due to the diplomatic rules of engagement at that time. Likewise, Juan Vaca’s “OK” depicts the extraordinary discipline of Marine snipers, notably including the discipline sometimes required to hold fire.

There are three incredibly moving stories. Jerrod Alberich’s “Best Day, Worst Day” depicts the bonds of camaraderie and the fear of losing a brother after a surprise attack. It also gives some good PR to the WWE, who were at Camp Victory, Iraq to stage a performance (or whatever term they prefer) at the time of the mortar shelling.

Truthfully, active-duty Army officer Stephen Cady’s “Brothers” would (and should) make a terrific movie. After a harrowing deployment, seen in extensive flashbacks, Lt. Cady finds himself temporarily quartered on Bagram Air Force base as he awaits transit back to the States. In a twist of fate, the Marine half-brother he barely knows is also stationed there, so he somewhat reluctantly agrees to meet for their mother’s sake. That reunion stretches into seven of the most emotionally resonant pages of sequential graphic story-telling you will ever read in your life.

Warhorse One: Heroism in Afghanistan

This rescue mission should not have been necessary. Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan was strategically questionable, but the execution was a humiliating horror show. The chaos also caught Zoe Walters’ missionary father by surprise too. However, the U.S, military was so grateful for his help during the evacuation, they redirect Master Chief Richard Mirko’s team to extract him and his family. Sadly, little Zoe will be the only one left to save and Mirko is the only surviving team-member who can save her in Johnny Strong & William Kaufman’s Warhorse One, which opens this Friday in theaters.

Mirko’s team were on their way to another mission when they reassigned to save the Walters instead. Unfortunately, the team’s chopper is blown out of the sky, leaving Mirko the only survivor. He wants to take the fight to the Taliban in the area, but Commander Johns back at HQ keeps him on mission. Tragically, the same Taliban faction also found the Walters’ transport. Only Zoe survived, because her mother died shielding her.

Initially, Zoe is also frightened of Mirko when he finds her. However, she starts to trust him, because she recognizes the wounded sensitivity under his gruffness. When you boil it down, Warhorse One is a lot like Man on Fire, transplanted to the mountains of Afghanistan. Of course, that means each time Mirko guns down a Taliban fanatic (and he blasts a lot of them), viewers get some cathartic endorphins.

Frankly, you have to give credit to Strong, who plays Mirko and co-wrote and co-directed with Kaufman, because Warhorse One has enough slam-bang action to hang with Extraction 2. The body count is impressive, but its depiction of boots-on-the-ground warfighting is grounded in reality.

Left Unfinished: The Forbidden Reel

Rather remarkably, the staff of Afghan Films already saved their film archive from the Taliban once. Sadly, they will probably have to do it again, because Joe Biden got bored with Afghanistan. Hopefully, Taliban enforcers have not seen this documentary, but wisely the employees of the state film agency was already racing to digitize their archive, in recognition of the nation’s continuing instability. Ariel Nasr documents the history of Afghan cinema and the efforts to save it in the NFB-produced documentary, The Forbidden Reel, which screens online as part of the Smithsonian’s Left Unfinished: Recent AfghanCinema series.

Not surprisingly, the series also features What We Left Unfinished, the story of five incomplete, rediscovered Soviet Era films that offered in window into Afghan cinematic history. In fact, the director, Mariam Ghani (who also happened to be the daughter of former President Ashraf Ghani, now in exile in the UAE, for obvious reasons) appears throughout Reel, as one of Afghan Film’s chief supporters and consultants.

Not unexpectedly, the Taliban did indeed come to burn their country’s cinematic heritage. However, the forewarned Afghan Film employees were able to hide their true archive, by serving up their storeroom of international films instead. As of 2019, they were well into their digitization campaign, with Ghani’s assistance.

Initially, the Soviet-era was seen as a boon for filmmaking, but as the puppet government imprisoned and executed more and more Afghans, many of the directors attached to Afghan Films joined the Mujahideen, serving in the filmmaking unit attached to Ahmad Shah Massoud’s fighters. The moderate commander was one of the most effective at battling the Soviets, but he was tragically assassinated by his more extreme Taliban rivals, which directly led to an existential crisis for Afghan Films.

When watching Forbidden Reel, it is clear Afghanistan does not have to be the way it is. Most Afghans want to work hard, take care of their families, and maybe take in a movie now and then. Yet, a lack of will on our part turned back the clock to 2001. Perhaps most chillingly, we understand many of the people interviewed by Nasr are now in grave danger, if they have not managed to secure safe passage out of their country. Obviously, they can’t expect much help from us. We still have Americans we have yet to evacuate, but the Biden administration is loudly patting itself on the back, because they believe the total number is “fewer than 12.” (We’re midway through December, by the way.)

Above the Best: Air Support for Independence Day

On Independence Day, we should give thanks for the men and women serving in the American military. With the hostile regimes in Mainland China, Russia, Iran and North Korea all acting with greater belligerence, we are going to need their training and discipline more than ever. No filmmakers have documented the courage and professionalism of American military personnel better than the tandem of David Salzberg and Christian Tureaud. The Fourth of July is a fine time to catch up with their Above the Best, which captures the efforts of Army Apache helicopter pilots to provide air support to troops on the ground.

Above focuses on CW4 Daniel Flores’ service, flying two extremely dangerous missions in Afghanistan, after surviving a crash stateside that led to intermittent bouts of claustrophobia. However, the film starts with a controversial incident involving a crashed Chinook, whose entire crew was lost and presumed dead. Flores makes it clear he would never leave anyone on the ground unprotected—and he had his chances to prove it.

The first extended battle Above documents involved an Afghan convoy, with three embedded Americans, a Captain (who is not heard from, perhaps for good reason) and a lieutenant and master sergeant, who give the full blow-by-blow. Finding them was tricky, but eventually Flores and his crew escorted them safely through one ambush after another.

According to protocol, at least two Apaches should always be deployed together, but due to extreme circumstances, Flores was ordered to accompany a convoy carrying a high-ranking general directly into the Korengal Valley, the so-called “Valley of Death.” He found himself flying with the equivalent of one hand tied behind his back, because his bullets had not been properly replenished.

Flores and his American comrades, both in the air and on the ground, get their full due in Above. However, many of the interview subjects go out of their way to also give credit to the Afghan regular army soldiers, describing them as patriots. As they point out, the Afghans do not just fight without advanced body army. Many times, they also fight without material like socks. They particularly single out for praise interpreter Naser Ahmadi, who is there for the happy first face-to-face meeting Flores has at the end of the film with some of the ground forces he supported from the air.

Animation First ’20: The Swallow of Kabul

Yasmina Khadra ran for the presidency of his native Algeria (not so impressively), but his most celebrated novel (written in French) tells of life in Afghanistan under the Taliban. The truth isn’t pretty, but the animated film adaptation is strikingly beautiful. Islamist extremism deepens and compounds a freak tragedy in Zabou Breitman & Elea Gobbe-Mevellec’s The Swallows of Kabul which screens during the Alliance Française’s 2020 Animation First Festival, in New York.

Mohsen and Zunaira Ramat were a modern educated couple. Now she must wear a burqa and must be accompanied by her husband whenever she leaves the house. Despite his reasonableness, Mohsen gets caught up in the mania of the moment and joins the fatal stoning of a convicted prostitute (whether she truly was one is anyone’s guess). Zunaira does not take his confession well. Rather fatefully, it causes an argument that leads to a horrible accident that Zunaira will be harshly punished for.

She will be the latest captive in the prison Atiq Shaukat oversees. In fact, she is the only prisoner, because the others have already been put to death. If Shaukat was ever troubled by the torture and executions, he is numb to it all now—at least until he spies Zunaira. Of course, he was not supposed to. This is not a Sybil Danning women-in-prison movie. Only female trustees should ever see a women prisoner without her hazmat suit. Sadly, she just doesn’t care anymore, but the pathos of her situation just might stir some feelings in Shaukat. Ironically, his terminally ill wife Mussarat is happy instead of jealous at the prospect of Shaukat’s emotional re-awakening, because it alleviates some of the guilt she feels for the way his life ended up. Nevertheless, Ramat is due to be executed as part of a Taliban public extravaganza, so Shaukat’s questions only bring anger and suspicion upon himself.

Thematically, Swallows is quite similar to Nora Twomey’s The Breadwinner, but its lush, watercolor-like animation is even more elegant, whereas the GKIDS release is probably somewhat more emotionally involving. Swallows still packs quite a punch. The adaptation credited to Breitman, Patricia Mortagne, and Sebastien Tavel maybe slightly softens Khadra’s ending, but the tragic inevitability of it all will definitely haunt viewers.

The Breadwinner, Another GKIDS Masterwork

Girls passing for boys was a staple of Shakespeare’s comedies, but the stakes were never so precariously high as they are for young Parvana. In Taliban-dominated Kabul, the arrest of her father, the male head of household, effectively imposes house-arrest on his wife and daughters. For their continued subsistence survival, Parvana must pass herself off as a boy, but the consequences will be unspeakably brutal if she is discovered. Islamist misogyny and intolerance have dire consequences in Nora Twomey’s The Breadwinner, an animated GKIDS release, which opens this Friday in New York.

Parvana’s father Nurullah is a former schoolteacher, but the former Soviet occupiers cost him a leg and the current Taliban oppressors left him unemployed. Books and photos are now forbidden and women can only leave their homes accompanied by a senior family member. When a former pupil has Nurullah arrested out of spite and fundamentalist fervor, there is no one left at home to shop for food or earn money. As their supplies dwindle, Parvana tries to make purchases at the market, but no vendor will risk incurring the Taliban’s wrath by selling to her.

Out of desperation, Parvana disguises herself as a boy, donning the clothes of a brother killed by a Soviet booby-trap. In the short term, Parvana develops the survival skills necessary for day-to-day survival. She also rekindles a friendship with Shauzia, a former classmate in very much the same situation. However, her long-term goal of securing her father’s freedom remains elusive. Thus far, she only has a beating to show for her efforts.

Frankly, the punch to the solar plexus she takes from a prison guard is far from the most brutal attack on women viewers witness in Breadwinner. GKIDS has often pushed the envelope of animation sophistication, perhaps mostly notably with the urbane and elegiac Chico & Rita, but Breadwinner is easily their toughest film yet. Its PG-13 rating is debatable, but there is no question Twomey shows the violent, intolerant realities of life under the Taliban, in uncompromisingly vivid terms. There is also a messiness to the conclusion that will frustrate naïve viewers, but it stays admirably true to reality.

Twomey co-directed The Secret of the Kells and served as “voice director” of Tomm Moore’s Song of the Sea, which are certainly credits that inspire confidence, but Breadwinner is still a shockingly powerful cinematic statement. Arguably, Deborah Ellis’s YA novel could only be adapted as an animated film, because a live-action feature would place its primary lead in grave danger, much like the young actor in The Kite Runner, except it would be even worse for a girl. Regardless, Twomey and screenwriter Anita Doron do right by Ellis’s characters and the real-life girls and women they represent.

Despite the desperate circumstances Parvana faces, Twomey’s animation is often quite lovely. Yet, there is more truth in Breadwinner than most “adult” films released this year. Thanks to this film and Loving Vincent, 2017 has already proved itself as an exceptional year for animation. If one of them does not win an Oscar, it will be time to seriously consider abolishing the Academy. Very highly recommended, The Breadwinner opens this Friday (11/17) in New York, at the IFC Center downtown and the Landmark 57 in Midtown way west.

The Beast: Back on DVD and Out for Badal

It’s based on a stage play, but it has a bunch of explosions. When adapting his play Nanawatai for the big screen, William Mastrosimone could fully explore the horrors of war, while still focusing on the Pashto principles of sanctuary (nanawatai) and revenge (badal). Yet, the 1980s were such a rich movie decade, the resulting film was unfairly overlooked during its initial release. Fortunately, Mill Creek Entertainment just rereleased the Kevin Reynolds’ Afghanistan war drama The Beast (trailer here) on DVD today.

It really is a vintage Soviet tank Commander Daskal’s crew drives, thanks to the Israelis, who liberated it from their belligerent neighbors. Daskal, a.k.a. Tank Boy, would definitely not approve of the tankers who abandoned their ride, but he couldn’t fault the film’s authenticity. The grizzled tank commander has only one speed, charging full speed ahead. We see the brutality he brings to bear on a village suspected of harboring mujahedeen. However, his wanton savagery, including one prisoner crushed under the tank’s track, will drive the village’s new khan, Taj, as he tracks Daskal’s tank in hopes of badal. More ominously, the village’s freshly minted widows follow behind Taj’s men, looking for an opportunity to vent their fury.

Daskal might just give them the opportunity. Thanks to the damage done to their radio and charts, the commander takes a wrong turn into a canyon cul-de-sac. He will blame their local translator Samad, a Party member in good standing, but he and Konstantin Koverchenko, the highly-educated tank driver, know better. With their fuel and provisions running low and the mujahedeen remaining in hot pursuit, Daskal starts to exhibit Captain Queeg symptoms, except he is never indecisive. However, his greatest mistake will be leaving the almost insubordinate Koverchenko to die in the desert, after learning from Samad the proper meaning and pronunciation of nanawatai and badal.

Frankly, Koverchenko’s “hey tank boy” taunts, referring to Daskal’s childhood Stalingrad exploits should have been an 80s catch-phrase up there with “I’ll be back” and “there can be only one.” Although it shares some surface similarities with the Dolph Lundgren guilty pleasure, Red Scorpion, The Beast is much deeper and classically archetypal. It also has the superior warfighting sequences, hands down. Frankly, it was probably the best film at depicting armored warfare tactics and maneuvering until Fury came along.

Jason Patric was and still is the film’s biggest star, but instead of a Hollywood star turn, he plays Koverchenko with quiet, slow-burning intensity. His work is excellent, but the instantly recognizable character actor George Dzundza is the one who really deserved award attention. He is harrowingly intense to watch as Daskal, the martinet who is starting to lose his grip, along with cherished Soviet world view. Israeli Erick Avari also gives the film tragic resonance as the bullied Samad.

To be fair, Cuban-born Steven Bauer has the commanding bearing and presence for Taj. Granted, there are fewer Afghan cast-members in The Beast than there are now Asians on Hawaii Five-O, but we should remember the country was still under Soviet occupation while the film was in production, making it difficult to recruit local talent. Instead, Reynolds largely relied on Israeli and Indian thesps, the former of whom surely enjoyed sticking it to the Russian bear.

Perhaps it was just bad timing. By the time The Beast opened in theaters, the Soviets had begun to withdraw from Afghanistan with their tails between their legs. Nevertheless, it remains a powerful portrayal of the horrors of Communist aggression and the clash of two radically dissimilar belief systems. Very highly recommended, The Beast is now available on DVD from Mill Creek Entertainment.

Legion of Brothers: The Story of the Green Berets in Afghanistan

In the earliest days of Operation Enduring Freedom, Special Forces Team 595 became the first military unit to engage the enemy on horseback. Their heroic efforts have been immortalized with the America’s Response Monument in front of World Trade Center One. Fifteen years later, the Green Beret veterans reflect on their fateful service in Greg Barker’s Legion of Brothers (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

The 595 and the 574 were some of the first American boots on the ground. The 595 embedded with the North Alliance outside of Mazar-e-Sharif, while the 574 largely operated on their own in the south, before eventually coordinating with Hamid Karzai and his forces. Most Americans have forgotten—if they ever really knew—just how quickly and successfully this Special Forces vanguard completed their mission. Frankly, they had all but toppled the Taliban before any proper military chain of command arrived in-country. Then things started to get complicated.

Obviously, you cannot get bogged down in a country if you only have a few dozen military personnel deployed there. It is a different matter when you get up to the tens of thousands. The Green Berets were also effective diplomats who won the trust of their Afghan allies. They also had hard won local knowledge they could immediately apply to any tactical situation. Unfortunately, when the higher-ranking officers arrived, they started issuing dubious orders to justify their presence, which led to the horrific tragedy that dominates Legion’s third act. At least that is how Barker and the Special Forces veterans see it—and the deeply remorseful officer in question never really contradicts them. It is just painful to watch the haunted officer’s interview segments.

In many ways, Legion is an eye-opening documentary. Yet, should we really be surprised that decentralized decision-making yields better results than a rigid top-down command-and-control model? Now if Barker and CNN Films will apply these lessons to the economy, we might really start to get somewhere.

It is absolutely maddening to compare Afghanistan as the 595 and 574 left it, with the state of the country today. However, Barker and his subjects focus more on their own grief for fallen comrades. Throughout the film, Barker’s sympathies fall squarely behind the Green Berets, but he is not quite as scrupulously nonpartisan and agenda-less as Christian Tureaud, David Salzberg, and Alex Quade, whose films represent the gold standard of embedded documentaries. It seems safe to say Barker has issues with the way Afghanistan operations have been conducted during the subsequent fifteen years, which is fair enough.

Barker captures moments of soul-rending pain and healing catharsis, but the film never feels exploitative. Many of the Green Berets are quite brave in what they are willing to share, but courage is what they do. Recommended for its empathy and a trenchant analysis of what went right in Afghanistan and how it started to go wrong, Legion of Brothers opens this Friday (5/19) in New York, at the Cinema Village.

Citizen Soldier: The Oklahoma Guard in Afghanistan

We expect a lot of our regular army. Lately, we have asked even more of our National Guardsmen. Only provided thirty-nine days of training per year, National Guard units have been frequently deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan on a long-term basis. Yet many members of Oklahoma’s 45^th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, a.k.a. “The Thunderbirds,” apparently expected the assignment and in some cases knowingly signed up with such service in mind. David Salzberg & Christian Tureaud, the co-directors of The Hornet’s Nest, follow the Oklahoma Guardsmen during their deployment in Citizen Soldier (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

The way Sgt. Eran Harrill and his comrades talk about Lt. Damon Leehan and Sgt. Mycal Prince in the past tense certainly gives the viewer a sense of foreboding during the introductory sequences. Tragically, they will indeed sacrifice their lives during the course of events documented in Citizen. Ironically, their rugged corner of Afghanistan was relatively quiet during their first months in-country. However, that would change drastically.

We witness the lethal force of IED attacks in brutally close proximity. Salzberg & Tureaud capture all the confusion of warfighting as well as the unique challenges of the mountainous terrain. Frequently, the film resembles Cliffhanger or The Eiger Sanction as the men of the 45^th struggle to descend impossibly steep mountain faces, just so they can reinforce their brothers pinned down in a fire fight.

Salzberg, Tureaud, and war correspondent-executive producer Boettcher (the subject of Hornet’s Nest) truly set the gold standard for embedded documentary filmmaking. Once again, they chronicle some dramatic boots-on-the-ground action (although probably not quite as adrenaline charged as that seen in Nest), but their battery of editors cut it together into a remarkably clear narrative form. Viewers will always get what is happening on screen and understand the implications well enough. Salzberg & Tureaud also convey a vivid sense of at least a half dozen of the Guardsmen, maybe more.

As you watch Citizen unfold, you really start to question just how fair it is to send the Oklahoma Thunderbirds to Afghanistan, yet nobody ever complains. In fact, Harrill and his brothers-in-arms seem to miss the camaraderie and keen sense of purpose once they return to civilian life. Of course, they do not all make it back—a fact that is ever so poignantly clear. Sometimes the film will choke you up, but it always makes you grateful the Oklahoma National Guardsman are ready and willing to serve. Very highly recommended, Citizen Soldier opens this Friday (8/5) in New York, at the AMC Empire.

Hyena Road: With the Canadians in Kandahar

The media loves to compare the current War in Afghanistan with the 1979 Soviet Invasion. It’s practically a miracle their memories go back that far. Canadian military intelligence officer Pete Mitchell takes a wider view, drawing lessons from Alexander the Great (who ultimately triumphed in Afghanistan, but in a pyrrhic sort of way). However, the sudden reappearance of a heroic anti-Soviet mujahidin commander represents a significant opportunity to win over hearts and minds. Of course, like everything else in Afghanistan, recruiting the so-called “Ghost” will be a tricky business in Paul Gross’s Hyena Road (trailer here), which opens this Friday in Los Angeles.

Also known as Route Fosters (you could really use a cold one after driving down it), Hyena Road was cut through some of the most dangerous real estate in Kandahar. Building it is an arduous process that cost the lives of many civilian contractors. Gen. Rilmen is determined to keep construction going, but with supposed allies like the not-so-secretly-Taliban associated warlord “BDK,” the going is tough. It is Mitchell’s job to find a counterbalance. The Ghost would be perfect, especially a since he holds a family grudge against BDK.

Mitchell first learns of the Ghost’s return when Ryan Sanders’ sniper team crashes an ambush intended for an approaching convoy. Surrounded by jihadists, Sanders and company prepare for the worst, but they are saved by the mysterious intervention of a village elder with different colored eyes. That detail catches Mitchell’s attention. With the help of Sanders and an intel source known simply as “the Cleaner,” Mitchell proceeds to woe the Ghost, but the war keeps getting in the way.

If you assumed we already had more than enough grunt’s eye-view films of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, Hyena Road is proof you thought wrong. Gross has long been a big-name star north of the border, but he never found equivalent fame here, despite appearing in Due South and Tales of the City. Frankly, Gross deserves breakout attention as both director and co-star of Hyena Road, but most critics will have trouble relating to his realistic depiction of the Canadian military.

Gross is absolutely terrific as Mitchell, an avowed cynic, “but never when it comes to the Afghan people,” as he pointedly argues. He is tough, smart, charismatic, and at times a little ruthless. Gross’s portrayal will challenge viewers’ presuppositions, but ultimately we will hope there are people like him operating on the ground. Rossif Sutherland also inspires tremendous confidence as the salt-of-the-earth Sanders. He also develops some convincing romantic chemistry with Christine Horne’s Jennifer Bowman, an operations officer struggling with their potentially career-stalling romance. However, it is impossible to match the gravitas and street cred of Niamatullah Arghandabi, a government advisor and former comrade of the real freedom fighter that inspired his character. His presence really distinguishes Hyena, giving it significance above and beyond a ripping good war film.

Gross stages several scenes of blisteringly intense combat that are also unusually crisply and cleanly filmed and therefore easy to follow. The warfighting feels real and so does the camaraderie. Frankly, the entire ensemble sound and carry themselves like military combat personnel, which is considerably harder to pull off than it sounds. Very highly recommended, Hyena Road opens this Friday (3/11) in Los Angeles at the Laemmle Monica Film Center.

AFI’s EU Showcase ’15: The Magic Mountain

Where could a mountaineering Polish dissident go to most effectively fight Communism in the 1980s? Obviously Afghanistan. Of course, getting there was no easy feat and staying alive once he arrived was even trickier. However, the late Adam Jacek Winker was not easily dissuaded. Anca Damian tells his extraordinary story in the animated documentary The Magic Mountain (trailer here), which screens as part of the AFI’s 2015 EU Film Showcase.

For Winker, the opposing the spread of Communism was a decidedly personal matter. His cousin and uncle were among those murdered by the Soviets at Katyn. He was able to get out of Poland while the getting was relatively good, but he also felt guilty about abandoning his homeland in a time of prolonged suffering. As a result, he was always looking for a way to take the fight back to the Soviets. While living in Paris, he was a bit of a gadfly, providing unwanted reality checks for the French Communists’ Labor Day festivities, but he was truly called to Afghanistan.

Since Winker only had a French “refugee” passport, getting to Afghanistan, by way of Pakistan, was a complicated process. However, once there, Winker fell in with the Mujahedeen relatively quickly. He had the extreme good fortune to join up with Commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, the “Lion of Panjshir,” an ardent foe of Communism, who later rejected the Taliban’s oppressive fundamentalism just as vigorously. Alas, Mountain also serves as an elegy to the assassinated Massoud, as well as his somewhat eccentric Polish friend and comrade.

Indeed, some the most poignant moments of Mountain focus on Winker’s efforts to promote and then memorialize the fallen Afghan hero. Yet, with respects to her central figure, Damian never descends into blinkered hagiography. Winker’s fault are readily identified, making him the stuff of classical tragedy, but viewers will understand where his zeal came from, and admire him for harnessing it.

Mountain incorporates archival photos of Winker and Massoud into the distinctive and diverse work of its team of animators and artists, including Theodore Ushev, Tomek Ducki, Matei Focsa Neagoe, Dan Panaitescu, and Raluca Popa. Frankly, a few sequences are almost excessively stylized to the point of self-defeating abstraction, but other visuals are absolutely arresting. Regardless, the film is always powered along by its sweepingly dramatic narrative.

Winker really was a character—a heroic character. He was also a principled individualist, who did not let his experiences in Afghanistan blind him to the dangers of Islamist ideology in his final years. Basically, he stayed on the right side of history, every step of the way, making his life story quite fascinating and instructive. Very highly recommended for fans of animation and biographical documentaries, The Magic Mountain screens this Saturday (12/12) as part of the AFI’s EU Film Showcase.

The Fighting Season: Boots on the Ground during the 2014 Election

The 2014 Presidential election represented a major security challenge for the Coalition forces and the Kabul City Police Center (KCPC). A successful election would be an important step in the nation’s healing process, embarrassing the Taliban determined to undermine it. Top brass and the White House also would also be happy facilitate Karzai’s exit from public life. Viewers will watch U.S. Army units across the war-torn country risk their lives to protect Afghanistan’s fragile democratic institutions in The Fighting Season (promo here), which premieres tomorrow night on DirecTV’s Audience network.

Inconveniently, the election largely coincides with the so-called “Fighting Season,” a rather unfortunate tradition wherein Taliban terrorists take advantage of the spring thaw to come down from the mountains to cause death and destruction. The men of Bravo Company stationed near Forward Operating Base (FOB) Shank will try to stop such Jihadis before they reach Kabul. For those that slip thorough, special teams working for Lt. Gen. Joseph Anderson will try to coach and reinforce the KCPC officers maintaining the three concentric rings of check-points known as Kabul’s “Ring of Steel.”

Based on the initial installment, the six part Fighting Season might be one of the best embedded, boots-on-the-ground documents of the Afghanistan Theater that has yet been produced for television. There will be real firefights, but the most compelling part of episode one is the messy uncertainty of intelligence-gathering and reconnaissance. A considerable difference in perspective emerges between Col. John Graham, who believes in face-to-face contact for winning over the Kabul citizenry, and his more battle-hardened task force colleagues, who are concerned about the security risks involved in his spontaneous approach. The problem is, viewers watching Season will be quickly convinced they are both right.

There is some amazing camera work in Season, including some night vision sequences that are so clear and easy to follow, one might think they were lifted from an action film. Executive producer Ricky Schroder’s voice-overs also perfectly suit the program. Instead of a silky smooth narrator, he sounds like enlisted man. It is also clear Schroder and the rest of the Season team respect the troops and believe in the War on Terror considerably more than Jeb Bush.

There is plenty of uncensored warfighting in Season, as well as the sort of salty language military personnel will use from time to time. It is real in a way that is really real, but it also gives a detailed look at the infrastructure and levels of command involved in each mission. Based on the first compelling episode, The Fighting Season is very highly recommended when it debuts tomorrow (5/19) on DirecTV’s Audience Network.

Hornet’s Nest: With the No Slack Troops in Afghanistan

He was known as QZR—was known. Now the Taliban militant is simply the late Qari Ziaur Rahman. The civilized world can thank the troops of the No Slack Battalion 2/327 and their 2^nd Battalion 8^th Regiment Marine Regiment and 3BCT “Rakkasan” Airborne colleagues. Embedded journalists Mike Boettcher and his son Carlos followed the No Slack Task Force on a series of dangerous missions, culminating with a strike against Rahman on his home turf. Shot by the Boettchers, the action is as real as it gets in David Salzberg & Christian Tureaud’s The Hornet’s Nest (trailer here), which opens tomorrow in New York.

Credited as producers and cinematographers, the Boettchers were deeply embedded with the No Slack troops, very much in the line of Taliban fire. A veteran war correspondent, Mike Boettcher had done this sort of thing before, serving as a fulltime embed for Nightline. This was Carlos Boettcher’s first time covering a war zone, but his father reluctantly agreed to let him share his assignment. Despite his concern, he hoped the same forces that bound the troops together would help repair their somewhat estranged relationship.

It probably is not much of a spoiler to report that much proceeded as planned. The real point to Nest is the footage they jointly recorded, which is absolutely incredible. Remarkable for their clarity of sound and visuals, Nest’s warfighting incidents are even more intense and far easier to follow than anything seen in Junger’s Korengal films or Brothers at War and Severe Clear, documenting the Iraq War experience. At times, Salzberg & Tureaud are able to shift between each embed’s footage for multiple vantage points on the chaotic battles.

Frankly, Nest probably realizes the worst fears of several Columbia School of Journalism faculty members regarding embedded reporters. While the senior Emmy winning Boettcher scrupulously avoids political judgments, he makes no secret of his deep emotional involvement in the events he covers. It is easy to understand why, because the audience sees what he sees. It is tough to stay neutral watching Afghan children fall victim to IEDs or medivac helicopters take fire from Taliban forces, but the Boettchers witness it all in the heat and smoke of real-time war.

For obvious reasons, Nest has followed an unconventional distribution strategy, releasing in markets with large military populations before its New York run. As it happens, it opens here the same day as Junger’s Korengal. Both films are well worth seeing, but Nest is in fact the more powerful of the two. No other contemporary war doc so eerily captures the whistling sound of bullets whizzing overhead and when No Slack soldiers mourn their fallen brothers, Nest packs a greater punch to the emotional solar plexus. Very highly recommended, The Hornet’s Nest opens tomorrow (5/30) in New York at the AMC Empire and Village 7 theaters.

Korengal: Revisiting Camp Restrepo

Stationed in a remote outpost in the Korengal Valley dubbed Camp Restrepo (in honor of a late, beloved medic), the men of the Airborne Brigade’s Battle Company, 2/503 were supposed to be the tip of the spear for the American military in Afghanistan. However, in 2010, the administration decided the spear no longer needed a tip and closed all the American outposts in the deadly Korengal. Through new interviews and previously unseen footage, Sebastian Junger revisits the men featured in his Academy Award nominated documentary Restrepo, analyzing the impact of war on those who fight it in Korengal (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Tragically, Junger completed Korengal without his late partner Tim Hetherington, who shot his share of the footage and served as co-director of Restrepo and the subject of Junger’s elegiac tribute documentary, Which Way is the Front Line from Here? In fact, they had always planned a more reflective companion film to Restrepo that would allow audiences to become better acquainted with the men of Battle Company.

So now that Restrepo has been decommissioned, do they miss it? More than you might think. War can be shocking and profoundly unfair, as Junger’s first film with Hetherington documents, but it can also be bracing. Nothing clears the head like a morning fire fight, especially for the athletically inclined. (In a rueful aside, one Airborne infantryman casually observes the Korengal mountain ridge would be “sports paradise” were it not for all the warfare going on.)

However, Junger will not allow ideological viewers to conveniently dismiss the men as adrenaline junkies. That might play a part in their adaptation to the harsh duty conditions, but the men form a strong camaraderie with one another and consciously shield their loved ones from the realities of their service as best they can. They also develop unromanticized opinions of the assorted clan leaders operating within the Korengal. Frankly, they probably have a much better understanding of the country than their current civilian leadership (not that that is a particularly high standard to surpass). Indeed, they sound remarkably grounded, all things considered, despite all they have witnessed.

It is very clear why Junger made his Afghanistan films, including Front Line. They vividly capture the soldiering experience, very definitely including the sudden loss of a brother-in-arms. However, it is fair to wonder what was the purpose of the events they documented, if the strategy can be reversed at the drop of a hat? To Junger’s credit (and Hetherington’s too), the films scrupulously avoid politics, but once the house lights come back up, we exit into a political world.

Always fair to the men who appear in it, Korengal covers the full gamut of human emotions, while opening a window into one of the least forgiving corners of the world. Recommended for general audiences (who are celebrating Memorial Day today), perhaps even more highly than Restrepo, Korengal opens this Friday (5/30) in New York at the Landmark Sunshine.

The Network: Afghanistan Live and Direct

TOLO TV is like the Al Jazeera of Afghanistan, except it is critical of terrorism.  Founded by Saad Mohseni, his brothers Zaid and Jahid, and their sister Wajma to be an agent of change, TOLO TV is first and largest media outlet in Afghanistan. For three months, filmmaker Eve Orner documented the Mohsenis and many of their 900 employees at work and on their guard in The Network (trailer here), which releases on VOD platforms today.

If TOLO TV sounds familiar, you might remember Havana Marking’s Afghan Star, the behind-the-scenes look at the pop idol reality show produced by that station.  Marking followed the travails of a particular contest who faced death threats for modestly swaying to her music.  Several years later, contestants regularly show off a few non-twerking moves and often appear sans head trappings.  This constitutes progress and it was made possible by TOLO.

Growing up in exile as a result of the Soviet invasion, the Mohsenis, especially London-born Saad, are clearly entrepreneurs on a mission.  Arriving in Kabul with waves of returning expats, they shared the general euphoria following the fall of the Taliban.  Perceiving a need and an opportunity, they started the radio station that would eventually blossom into the TOLO mini-empire.  It was a risky venture, because there was absolutely no media whatsoever in the country at the time.  None.  Zero.  The Islamist Taliban had forbidden such sacrilege.  As one TOLO reporter dramatically recalls, the only sanctioned form of entertainment during the regime were public executions.  Yet despite the years of doing without, the Afghan people immediately took to TOLO’s offerings.

On one hand, The Network is a success story, charting TOLO’s growth as a business and a cultural phenomenon. However, an uneasy pessimism hangs over the film.  The Mohsenis and their employees openly fear the consequences when the western military powers cut-and-run.  After all, TOLO personnel have definitely become targets of the Taliban and their allies. Orner documents many of the tight spots they just barely survived.  Ironically, some of the most tragic episodes were instances when TOLO staffers were literally caught in the crossfire.

Arguably, Saad Mohseni is a media visionary.  Yet, TOLO often walks a fine line to avoid angering the Islamist element.  Their answer to Dr. Phil is particularly problematic, but one could make a case that the open criticism expressed by TOLO’s female employees of his “just be virtuous” advice is a promising sign. Granted, their melodramas look rather cheesy, but not as amateurish as the grade-Z Pashto films gonzo documentarian George Gittoes produced.  TOLO also challenges many pre-conceptions viewers might hold, especially with regards to the success they have had with their anti-terrorist cop show, partly underwritten by the U.S. embassy.

Indeed, there is little anti-American sentiment in The Network, per se, and there is absolutely no nostalgia for the Communist regime.  This is fascinating stuff, with far reaching social, economic, and geopolitical implications.  Orner captures plenty of telling moments and conveys a good sense of the increasingly uncertain vibe in-country.  It is a smart doc that is all muscle and no fat.  Highly recommended for Middle East watchers and strategic thinkers, The Network is now available for VOD viewing.

Special Forces: The French vs. the Taliban

Elsa Cassanova opposed the invasion of Afghanistan and wears keffiyehs.  She thought she would fit right in, but she is shocked to discover the Taliban systematically abuse local women.  As a result of her reporting on the horrors experienced by a woman sold into marriage-slavery to a prominent Taliban warlord, Cassanova is abducted and forced to make some rather ominous internet videos.  Without proper backup, an elite commando unit will mount a rescue attempt in Stéphane Rybojad’s Special Forces (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

It is a good thing Cassanova est tres jolie.  The prospect of her beheading has the French government freaked.  While the men under Commander Kovax command are not exactly thrilled with her byline, they will bring her home anyway.  It will not be easy though.  They will face Ahmed Zaief, an Islamist fanatic Cassanova dubbed “The Butcher of Kabul.”  You’d think he’s like that, but no, evidently not. 

Executing a mission planned on the fly, Kovax’s men liberate Cassanova from her immediate captors easily enough.  However, things get complicated with the extraction.  Cut off from their rendezvous points, the commandos have no choice but to head home on foot over the mountains, from Zaief’s Pakistani hideout to their base in Afghanistan, just like the gulag escapees in Peter Weir’s The Way Back.  However, Zaief and his men will pursue them (somewhat reluctantly) every step of the way.

While the French initially seem to have A-Team like success holding off the Taliban fighters, it should be kept in mind they have superior firepower, better morale, and higher ground all in their favor.  Nonetheless, their charmed luck soon runs out, with squad members dying off one by one.  Eventually, only the biggest stars are left to protect Cassanova.  That includes Djimon Hounsou as Kovax and Benoît Magimel as a Tic Tac, a flirty paratrooper who might just have a shot with the lefty journalist, if they both survive.

Hollywood should take note, Hounsou was an inspired casting decision.  Blessed with a truly commanding screen presence, he is completely credible in every action scene and lends the film dignified gravitas.  A Ryan Golsing or Reynolds just would not cut the Dijon mustard here.  While not as hardnosed, Magimel is sufficient as the sensitive commando.  Also perfectly cast, Diane Kruger nicely portrays Casanova’s resiliency in the face of harsh elements and harsher Islamists extremists.  It is hard to think of any other name actress working in film today who can similarly combine grit and beauty.

Well known in France for his military documentaries, Rybojad’s narrative is about as straight as gets, never throwing any sort of twist or turn the audience’s way.  Yet, to his considerable credit, her never whitewashes or excuses the brutality of the Taliban.  We see several instances of the terror they rain down on helpless villagers as well as the destruction left in their wake.  Again, this is an example of the sort of film Hollywood ought to be making, but refuses to.  Recommended for both action movies fans and Francophiles, Special Forces opens this Friday (10/12) in New York at the AMC Empire.

DocuWeeks New York ’11: The Boy Mir

His playground was the rubble left from horrific intolerance. Eight year-old (approximately) Mir’s family were forced from their home village, taking refuge among the caves of Bamiyan, where once the majestic Buddhas stood until the Taliban blasted them off the face of the cliff. Grimly fascinated by the act of state-sponsored vandalism, classical music documentarian Phil Grabsky headed to Bamiyan after the fall of the Taliban, promptly meeting Mir. The young boy’s star power resulted in the documentary The Boy Who Plays on the Buddhas of Bamiyan. Yet to his credit, Grabsky did not settle for drive-by coverage, instead committing to a Seven-Up approach, revisited Mir once a year for a decade. Those periodic trips were eventually shaped into The Boy Mir—Ten Years in Afghanistan (trailer here), which screens during the Oscar-qualifying DocuWeeks 2011 in New York.

While ostensibly documenting Mir’s development, Grabsky also charts the progress and regression of sort-of post-Taliban Afghanistan. Indeed, one can see both happening simultaneously, as the basic living standards of Mir’s village improve dramatically, while the security situation deteriorates rather steadily. Returning home from Bamiyan, Mir is torn between the long benefits of an education and his family’s short term economic needs. A mining accident effectively ended his father’s working days, forcing Mir to share the breadwinning duties with his older half-brother Khushdel.

Even by local standards, where necessity trumps luxuries like love and affection, Mir’s family tree is a bit complicated. As part of a grand bargain, Mir’s father offered Khushdel his daughter’s hand in marriage in return for that of the younger man’s mother. Regardless of what that makes them to each other, Mir’s close relationship with Khushdel is one of the more endearing aspects of the film.

Though Grabsky tried his level best, problematic gender attitudes largely prevented the participation of Mir’s mother and particularly that of his still relatively young sister. Yet, her near absence speaks volumes, none of it edifying. However, it underscores the harsh realities of Afghanistan. To a large extent, it remains in the middle ages.

Indeed, America and our allies have not been involved in a rebuilding effort, but an attempt to build a functioning country from scratch. That we can see demonstrable increases in construction and electrification over ten years ought to be most apparent to those who witnessed it first-hand. Unfortunately, over the years, Mir appears to absorb some of the virulent anti-western prejudices the Taliban prey on. In accordance with his strictly observational approach, Grabsky never directly challenges this evolution of mind-set, at least not on camera. As a result, Boy leaves viewers rather pessimistic for the future of Afghanistan.

While Grabsky simply records Mir and his family going about their daily business sans commentary, the film’s yearly progression keeps the pace chugging along nicely. It also holds no illusions regarding the nature of the Taliban. No small undertaking, Boy’s time-lapse portrait of Afghanistan might challenge some preconceived notions of the war, including inside the White House. One of the better films of the first week of DocuWeeks New York, Boy screens though Thursday (8/18) at the IFC Center.

HRWFF ’11: Love Crimes of Kabul

Witness Islamic Sharia Law in practice. It is impossible to consider it anything less than institutionalized misogyny after observing the prosecution of “moral crimes” in Afghanistan. With remarkable frankness, Iranian-American filmmaker Tanaz Eshaghian takes viewers inside the Badam Bagh women’s prison, where half the inmates are incarcerated on dubious morals charges in Love Crimes of Kabul, one of the laudable selections of the 2011 Human Rights Watch Film Festival that actually addresses human rights abuses.

All three of Kabul’s primary POV figures are young women, who should have had promising futures ahead of them. All three stand accused of the heinous crime of premarital sex, but only one of them actually engaged in what would be perfectly legal behavior in a rational society. Not to be spoilery, but care to guess which one gets the most lenient sentence? Indeed, it quickly becomes apparent that justice has no place whatsoever in Islamic Law.

Easily the most shocking case is that of seventeen year old Sabereh, who simply had the misfortune to be caught eating a meal alone with a boy. Suspiciously, when a medical examination confirms her virginity, the prosecution switches gears, charging her with sodomy, the equivalent of going nuclear. Of course, Eshaghian’s cameras were banned from Sabereh’s trial, lest the railroading be exposed to sunlight, but the fix was obviously in.

At first, Kabul makes the audience’s blood boil, but as the full implications of the injustices perpetrated in Badam Bagh become clear, viewers’ stomachs will turn to ice. Eschewing talking heads and voiceovers, Eshaghian captures a visceral sense of life for the accused. She also records some brutally honest conversations as the women struggle with their Kafkaesque situations. Despite the relatively short running time, Eshaghian patiently lets scenes play out so viewers can appreciate their full import. Though her overall access is quite impressive, when her cameras are banned (as during Sabereh’s “trial”), the significance is similarly inescapable.

While Eshaghian’s unfiltered approach is undeniably bold and bracing, she leaves one rather obvious question largely unexplored. In fact, one of the most striking aspects of Kabul is the considerable presence of toddlers in Badam Bagh, who were either delivered whilst their mothers serving their time or were essentially abandoned by their fathers. Strangely though, Kabul never tackles the issue of these true innocents growing up behind bars.

The injustices faced by the women of Badam Bagh in general and young Sabereh in particular demand official American intervention. No doubt, our current administration will get right on that, sometime after the U.S. Open. A shocking indictment, Kabul is a worthy companion film to The Green Wave, both of which are highly recommended at this HRWFF. It screens this coming Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday (6/20-6/22) at the Walter Reade Theater. Part of HBO’s Documentary Films Summer Series, Kabul also premieres on the network July 11th.

Danes in Afghanistan: Armadillo

Just because they are Danish soldiers, does not mean they should trust the media anymore than their American counterparts. A group of Danes serving in Afghanistan learns this PR lesson the hard way in Janus Metz’s embed-style documentary Armadillo (trailer here), which opens tomorrow in New York.

Amazingly, as the film opens, the Danish unit stationed at the Helmand forward operating base (nicknamed Armadillo) has yet to suffer a fatal casualty. In fact, when the group of soldiers Metz follows from enlistment and basic training arrive at Armadillo, boredom seems to be their greatest foe. In a rather clumsy effort to be provocative, Metz makes much of their choice of entertainment: violent video games and run-of-the-mill porn, as if this were shocking for a group of twenty-something men serving in the middle of nowhere without any interaction with women.

The Danish soldiers make an effort to reach out to the locals, but they have trouble overcoming the widespread fear of Taliban reprisals. Isolated and untested, the Helmand outpost is simply too tempting a target for Taliban guerillas to resist for long. Eventually, they make their move. Unfortunately, it is impossible to really tell what went down in the soon to be controversial incident. Most of the camerawork is a veritable blur, which is understandable considering bullets were flying. However, Metz never establishes any reference points for area in question, or sets the scene in any way.

From what we can glean from the film, the Danish soldiers were able to pin down a Taliban recon unit in a ravine not far from Armadillo. Unable to tell how many men were concealed there or in what condition, they lobbed in a series of grenades until it seemed safely quiet. Surviving a real life firefight in which members of their unit sustained serious but not critical injuries, the men were understandably satisfied with the outcome.

However, it seems one of the Danish soldiers (as yet unidentified), leaked word to the media that his brothers-in-arms had “liquidated” injured Talibans and bragged about it afterward. None of this is in the film. Nevertheless, some in Denmark expressed outrage that the soldiers celebrated their success in combat. Particularly vexing were statements to the effect that the Talibans deserved to die.

Here is a reality check. The Danish soldiers were correct. The Talibans terrorize their own people, enforcing a misogynistic, homophobic doctrine of hate. They themselves adhere to no civilized rules of engagement. What the Danes did was not a crime. It is what we call a result. Yet, by milking the firestorm in the Danish press (which reaches Armadillo at just under light speed), Metz essentially tips his hand. He cannot prove it with his footage, but the implied narrative is that the Danish soldiers are thrill junkies, out for a spot of bloodsport.

The great irony is that the subjects themselves largely undercut the meta-message. Yes, they are grunts. Col. Jessup would certainly approve. Yet, they do reach out to the Afghan people and exhibit loyalty to each other (albeit with one significant exception). The final kicker of the film is the where-are-they-now scroll, in which nearly every one of the Armadillo men has re-enlisted with the intent of returning to Afghanistan, or seriously considering it. Metz never asks why, but one can guess it involves duty, honor, and a sense of unfinished business.

Clearly the men of Armadillo never relax and open up around Metz like the Army Airborne soldiers Hetherington and Junger documented in Restrepo. As a result, it never packs the same emotional punch. While there are some insights to be gleaned into modern military realities, especially the confrontational nature of the media, one suspects Armadillo fails by its own standards. If nothing else, it serves as a timely reminder of our Danish friends and allies’ continuing service in Afghanistan. Flawed but still somewhat interesting, Armadillo opens today (4/15) in New York at the IFC Center.