In February 2009 a group of Danish soldiers accompanied by documentary filmmaker Janus Metz arrived at Armadillo, an army base in the southern Afghan province of Helmand. Metz and cameraman Lars Skree spent six months following the lives of young soldiers situated less than a kilometer away from Taliban positions. The outcome of their work is a gripping and highly authentic war drama that was justly awarded the Grand Prix de la Semaine de la Critique at this year's Cannes film festival.
Moving, complex and brutal, it’s an outstanding film about men at war.
Overpraised doc about Afghanistan.
As with last year's Oscar-nominated doc Restrepo, this avoids the wider political questions of what the West is doing here. It's simply a record of men at war, trying not to get killed.
Other questions could be asked about the ethics of creating thriller-style tension in the run-up to real combat, but there’s no denying the power of the images director Janus Metz Pedersen has captured.
Extraordinarily powerful.
It's terrifying stuff.
A significant addition to the documentaries on the war on terror.
Armadillo presents itself not as vérité-style reportage but as intensely "cooked", styled cinema. The editing opts for brisk cutting rather than long takes, and the imagery is often poetic, with a dash of Apocalypse Now in shots of a chopper hanging in a toxic yellow sky.
The moral uncertainty of war is conveyed with devastating effect in a remarkable dispatch from Afghanistan's frontline.
Riveting.
The film doesn't sit in judgment, but it does broaden our understanding of what's happening behind enemy lines – and behind the headlines.
Armadillo: The horror! The horror!
General release. Check local listings for show times.