of men and war film review

At the North American Premier :: Of Men and War

By some luck and love, Tara and I received memberships to MoMa this year for Christmas. Among the benefits are free tickets to every showing they offer, including their various festivals. We made it to the North American premier of the film…

Of Men and War
by Laurent Bécue Renard

 

Man were we in for a treat. A bitter treat like rhubarb pie, but a treat nonetheless.

Renard’s first film in his “Genealogy of Wrath” trilogy featured the Bosnian widows in the wake of the Bosnian war. The inspiration for his trilogy emerged from the generations of veterans in Renard’s own family. After observing the consequences of unjust war upon his own family, Renard wielded his camera to fight back the tide of violence. Of Men and War is the second of three, focusing on the husbands who leave for war. I get the notion that his third will focus on the children of war.

But first, the fathers.

Did you know there’s only one aftercare facility in the entire United States of America devoted to aftercare for veterans suffering from post traumatic stress?

 

That is to say, did you know there’s only one aftercare facility to help all veterans of foreign wars (VFW) debrief from the trauma they faced?

I didn’t until I watched the film at MoMa and listed to Renard speak on the issue alongside one of the documentary’s stars, a mortician. The documentary spends nearly seven-eighths of its time in the aftercare facility, a very brutal, very honest analyst’s-eye-view of these harrowing tales of the brutalities suffered, encountered, and instigated by the leading men of the film. In Renard’s words, “War begins in nations, lives in individuals, and dies in families.” For two-and-a-half hours, we suffering through the death of war in the hearts of the families caught in its undertow. Renard would say, “War is what happens when diplomacy fails. We fail and war happens.”

Let me get specific here: I heard the mortician talk about how he had to approach bodies that had resigned themselves to rigor mortis and shovel them into the back of a truck. Another private talked about how he was anally flipping a rifle’s safety as one might flip a coin – on and off and on again – when he accidentally pulled the trigger with the safety off, which resulted in his best friend’s brains being blown all over his bunkbed at point blank. It’s easy to see why the words “trigger warning” seem woefully inappropriate in this context.

Sometimes we need to face the PTSD right along with those we’ve sent to do the dirty work of the state. In this case, we face the worst brutalities of war in all of their psychological complexity. This film I faced not two days before my cousin committed suicide. As Gaiman said, screw trigger warnings – sometimes we have to face the dark things of the world that we might create a tomorrow for our children that’s devoid of the kind of abuses we ourselves witness daily. Had Hamlett come stock with a “trigger warning” on the cover, in the playbill, then we may well have missed one of the best rebukes of the last four hundred years. But I’ll save that for the post on Gaiman’s book tour.

READ NEXT:  The lie: “It’s just art.”

In Of Men and War, you’ll encounter men who suffered through restraining orders, through relapse, through suicide themselves – at least among their number. Early on, Renard said in the Q&A, he used a boom mic, emphasis on boom. The PTSD soldiers, mostly Iraqi “Freedom” veterans, all had visceral reactions to the microphone extender as if it were a rifle shoved into their faces. Instead, with the permission of the men, they rigged the room with hidden mics and used stripped-down cameras throughout the rest of the filming, offering every day the veto power to any of the men being filmed. Rather than asking for the removal of said camera, the men used it to deepen their therapeutic process – through the camera, they could tell their families the gross realities behind their recurring nightmares, confessions previously muted when they found themselves in the typical familial livingroom environ. Because of this “confessional” nature of the camera, Renard and the mortician both agreed that the film crew and the patients at the only PTSD center in America developed a thick, layered relationship with one another, one that could be “picked up without skipping a beat after nine months.”

Some in the audience mentioned the pushiness of the therapist in the film, but Renard replied that he only had four-to-five months to debrief the boys. There’s “No promise of fixing or healing [post traumatic stress]. [We have to find] what’s still alive that we can plant seeds inside.” The editor of the film agreed – in the editing room, he had to chop out hours of footage dealing with death, fighting all the time for the life and hope side of the spectrum. That clinging to life itself became the narrative threat, a thread that even informed the rearing of the children born in the wake of wrath (film #3 for Renard?)

In the end, that’s the job of the therapist at this center: to rehumanize the most dehumanized men in the modern world — those programed to dehumanize all non-Americans they encounter. Renard created a beautiful juxtaposition of the effects of war (confessions about men “fragging out” by diving on grenades) right beside the kinds of small town parades, football games, and charity auctions in which we all expect veterans to take part, waving dutifully their microcosmic stars and stripes. The ceremony, Renard seems to say, lends itself to the consequences of the ceremony. He draws a clean line from kiddie parade to PTSD.

Which, I suppose, begs the question:

If we must spend so much time and money trying to rehumanize men from the effects of war – if this isolated aftercare facility needs to truly be replicated across the nation – why do we keep choosing to dehumanize men and teach them to dehumanize others in the first place?
(tell me what you think in the comments).

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  1. neilcrabtree

    Because war makes money for the rich who are on the edge of psychopathy in that they have no feelings for those on the battlefield. What the rich and powerful forget is that ‘magic’ can only exist between equals so the question becomes: The Money or the Magic. I could not exist without the everyday magic of life, but then I’ve never known money as anything more than a means of exchange.
    http://www.etherinform.com/april2015_027.htm#3

    1. lanceschaubert

      Interesting thoughts, Neil. What do you mean when you say “magic” ?

      1. neilcrabtree

        To my mind magic is the connectivity of all things and it is magic that attracts the people, situations and environments that are best for your development, as well as for your contribution back to the whole.

        The physical vehicles for magic are biophotons: http://www.etherinform.com/april2015_008.htm#6

        Magic will only work when there is a genuine feeling of equality and equanimity. ‘I was just thinking of you and you rang – magic’.

        1. lanceschaubert

          Ah. So you’re saying that the connectivity that attracts people to one another only happens when there’s equality?

Quick note from Lance about this post: when you choose to comment (or share this post with your friends) you help other readers just like you.

How?

Well, see, your comments & sharing whisper a few things to those who come after you:

The first is that this site is a safe place to speak up & stay curious. That it's civil. That discussion is encouraged. That there's no such thing as a stupid question (being a student of Socrates, I really and truly believe this). That talking to one another and growing together is more important than anything we could possibly publish. That the point is growing in virtue and growing together and growing wise. That discovery is invention, deference is originality, that we all can rise together. The only folks I'm going to take comments down from are obvious jerks who argue in bad faith, don't stay curious, or actively make personal attacks. And, frankly, I'd rather we talk here than on some social media farm — I will never show ads and the only thing I'm selling anywhere on the site or my mailing list is just the stuff I make.

You're also helping folks realize that anything you & they build together is far more important than anything you come to me to read. I take the things I write about seriously, but I don't take myself seriously: I play the fool, I hate cults of personality, and I also don't really like being the center of attention (believe it or not). I would much rather folks connect because of an introduction I've made or because they commented with one another back and forth and then build something beautiful together. My favorite contributions have been lifelong business and love partnerships from two people who have forgotten I introduced them. Some of my closest friends NOW I literally met on another blog's comment section fifteen years ago. I would love for that to happen here — let two of you meet and let me fade into the background.

Last, you help me revise. I'm wrong. Often. I'm not embarrassed to admit it or worried about being cancelled or publicly shamed. I make a fool out of myself (that's sort of the point). So as I get feedback, I can say, "I was wrong about that" and set a model for curious, consistent learning, and growing in wisdom. I'm blind to what I don't know and as grows the island of my knowledge so grows the shoreline of my ignorance. It's the recovery of innocence on the far end of experience: a child is in a permanent state of wonder. So are the wise: they aren't afraid of saying, "I don't know. That's new: please teach me." That's my goal, comments help. And I read all reviews: my skin's tough, but that's not license to be needlessly cruel. We teach one another our habits and there's a way to civilly demolish an idea without demolishing another person: just because I personally can take the world's meanest 1-star review doesn't mean we should teach one another how to be crueler on the internet.

For three magical reasons — your brave curiosity, your community, & my ignorance:

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