I know Count has a similar thread but the information to his original source no longer exists. Here's a chilling non political review of De Palma's sure to be classic. Redacted - 5 stars Disturbing. This is the only word I could think of when it finished. By far, the most upsetting film I have seen since Schindler's list. Written and directed by Brian De Palma. This is not Bonfire or Scarface, but an entirely different De Palma. A quote from Brian himself from his directors notes that are published in the official catalog for the event. "To Redact is to edit or to prepare for publishing. Frequently a redacted document or image has simply personal (or possibly actionable) information deleted or blacked out; as a consequence redacted is often used to describe documents or images from which sensitive information has been admitted. The true story of our Iraq war has been redacted from the mainstream corporate media." - Brian De Palma. Brian's goal is to show the viewer the side of Iraq the media refuses to. I can only imagine how many people he will piss off with this film. It won't be long until someone calls him un-American or a friend of the terrorists. ***SPOILERS**** The movie opens with a statement that the events pictured in this film are fictional. However, they are all based on true accounts of other events in Iraq. Black lines appear through various words until only the letters REDACTED are left. The film stars are all relatively unknown which is key considering its premise - a story told from video journals of a soldier, a French documentary film maker, and an Al-Jazeera like network. The story focusing on the events before, during, and after the rape of a 15 year old Iraq girl by American soldiers. We are first introduced to the soldiers through a home movie being made by one of them, a Latino named Angel Salazar. It seems Angel was denied entrance to film school so he believes he can get in by making his own documentary of Iraq. Through Angel we meet his entire squad. All seem like relatively normal Army guys. Mostly bored and horny. Everywhere pictures of naked women hanging on the walls. And constant talk of getting laid. The film then switches over to a checkpoint where American's search cars going between zones. At this point the film is now in French with English subtitles. We are lead through the entire process from the point of view of a passenger in the Iraqi's car. Several key statistics are given such as half of the population of Iraq is illiterate so how could they possibly read or understand the signs. Then the key statistic that over 2,000 Iraqis have been killed at US checkpoints but of the 2,000 only 60 have been proven to be insurgents. A bit further on, the film then switches back to the Americans where a car appears to be running a checkpoint. They order he car to stop but it won't. The Americans open fire and the car stops. Out comes a man trying to take his sister to the hospital as she is giving birth. The sister has been shot. The Al-Jazeera network takes over at which point we learn the woman and baby both died. From the Iraqi point of view, the Americans waved him through the checkpoint and did not tell him to stop. Clearly a lost in translation situation. As a final in your face, the movie switches back to Angel's video where he is interviewing the soldier about the events. The soldier openly says he has no remorse or care about the dead woman. The movie continues through the lives of these men and their actions. There is a full out rape of a young woman on camera. And if you were grossed out by the bathroom scene in Scarface, this one blows that way with a revenge decapitation. The sound effects used still make me flinch when thinking about them. The movie ends with real pictures from dead civilians in Iraq including a pregnant woman who was clearly killed at a checkpoint. The entire film is only 90 minutes long. Any longer would simply have been to painful to watch. ***END Spoilers***** I must caution you not to see this movie on a full stomach as it is EXTREMELY violent. However, if the violence was removed or somehow cut back, the movie would lose its message. This film received an even longer standing ovation than Sleuth. I know some of you have doubts that it lasted 5 minutes, well Redacted blew that one away. After this one, my hands hurt from clapping for so long. It went on for several minutes after the credits had ended. If you think its a good idea we should be in Iraq, or that we have a clue and know what we are doing, then you need to see this movie. If you are opposed to the war, you still need to see this movie to see just how bad it really is. In my opinion, this movie deserves every best picture nod from every organization out there. Will it get it? Probably not as it is way too controversial. My vote is that it should be mandatory viewing for anybody over the age of 16. Intermission After watching Redacted, I followed Brian outside and got this photo. Clearly he looks as moved at his own movie as the rest of us were. I then headed to he bar as after that I needed a drink to calm down. From the bar I headed back to the main cinema to watch the spectacle of the arrival from George Clooney for Michael Clayton. Its unreal how he draws a crowd. For every other premier, the space behind the wall was easily maneuverable but with Clooney, it was just a zoo. See attached photo. After that, I headed down to the beach to watch the sunset and clear my head for Michael Clayton. I was really looking forward to something lighter after Redacted. http://www.aintitcool.com/node/33866 All I can say is WOW. I'm predicting it right here and now. This will film will win Best Picture. This will be as controversial as Passion of the Christ.
And I'm willing to bet it absolutely bombs at the Box Office and disappears without a trace. Case and point, one of DePalma's own: Casualties of War, does anyone remember that "highly regarded" picture today?
Agreed. But it will probably be quite popular at terrorist training camps and other anti-American sites. It should be a big help in terrorist recruiting! Good job, Brian.
I sounds very pro-military, especially the rape, the "revenge decapitation" and the not caring about dead pregnant women you just killed.
Since this is apparently the primary side of the military that gets displayed in the film--the callous and criminal element within it--that these are part and parcel of the military seems to be the impression De Palma was trying for. It seems my jest in the other thread was right, De Palma is trying to be the Leni Riefenstahl of the Iraq War.
The movie is about that and other similar incidents. Do you think he is wrong to make a movie on them?
No he's free to make the movie, but he paints it himself as a reason to force our congressmen to end the war. There are plenty of good reasons for that without the anti-military, appeal-to-emotion claptrap he's come up with. I agree with him that we should pull out of Iraq in some relatively short time frame, but I am also aware that (once we do) things are going to get very bad there for the people we leave behind. We'll see how many rapes and decapitations there are then (my guess is that there will be plenty). Here's my prediction Number of De Palma pseudo-documentaries about the gruesome aftermath following our withdrawal: zero. The reasons to pull out of Iraq are *not* the number of people being accidentally killed at checkpoints or because some soldiers commit crimes or have little empathy for the innocent people they kill. During WWII, innocent civilians got killed (especially after the Allied invasion of mainland Europe), most soldiers didn't feel much remorse over that fact and, occasionally, horrific crimes were committed by servicemen. I guess we should have pulled out of that one too? Of course not. The reason to withdraw from Iraq is that the continued occupation is not advancing any clearly discernable foreign policy goal enough to justify the costs in lives, limbs and money. Even the stability benefits we offer to the Iraqis are questionable, since our presence may well prevent the stabilization of the political situation in the long run. Those would be logical reasons to oppose the war, rather than illogical ones. Again, he's free to make his movie, but since it appears to be an enormous logical fallacy writ large and a deliberate attempt to smear the military in general with the bad actions of a few, he shouldn't be surprised that some people call him on it. His critics get free speech rights too, as much as his supporters may wish otherwise.
I think its necessary for those who vote for war to know exactly what they are voting for. But I admit, movies like these may inflame public opinion in the Middle East to more strongly anti-West.
NEWS FLASH If Reality is Anti-American to you conservatives in denial then so be it. I'm sick and tired of you chicken hawks discrediting every soldiers testimony, every on site news report that doesn't fit your preconceived version of the truth. I think you Conservatives are the real anti Americans. Your policies have taken rights from us, gotten hundreds of thousands dead in Iraq, American soldiers dying after their mission was completed, because you anti americans won't let them come home.
Go back to watching faux news. You're so use to not seeing or hearing the truth that it burns you like a vampire being exposed to sunlight. You call anything anti american that puts your party, not america, in a bad light. That's the difference. You just refuse to accept responsibility for supporting this atrocity of a war. And stop playing the race, I mean anti-american card, whenever this war you support is being trully depicted for what it really is.
I like how I come to this site, get called a "liberal" then come to another thread and am seen as a "conservative", that amuses me. Again, I am AGAINST THE WAR (and I'm not a Republican, so I don't see how it could make "my party" look bad). I am against the war for logically valid reasons though, not because "soldiers X, Y and Z did bad things and therefore the whole war is bad." Again, certain soldiers did bad things in WWII as well...in fact in pretty much any war, you can find some soldiers doing bad things. I also happen to oppose the "blame the military" view of why the war is bad. That bad things happen during a military operation is not really a compelling reason to abandon the operation. The 2000 Iraqis died at checkpoints is no reason to pull out of Iraq without a Hell of a lot more analysis. For example, suppose we took down the checkpoints, so that no one else died there. What would be the result? I don't know, but the answer could very well be that MORE than 2000 Iraqis would die because the lack of checkpoints gave the insurgents and militias greater freedom of movement. Suppose the soldiers only fired in clear self-defense. What result? Here I think we can be pretty sure that the result would be: dead soldiers. If U.S. soldiers waited until they knew the person apparently trying to run the checkpoint was hostile, then hostiles would be able to get much closer than they do now before being stopped. It's inevitable that some would use that opening to target the soldiers at the checkpoints. If those soldiers started dying (given the constraints on our military) it might well become much harder to maintain the checkpoints at all, leading to the problem mentioned in the previous paragraph. So, though certainly regrettable, I can see why so many innocent Iraqis are being killed at checkpoints. I can also see that 2000 deaths, while tragic, is not necessarily worse than the alternative. Would that you and De Palma understood this. Now, again for the feebleminded, there are good and valid reasons to oppose the war, but that war is terrible and terrible things have happened is only a starting point in the analysis. In De Palma's case, from what you've posted, he's taking isolated incidents and using them in a logically fallacious argument against the war. Since there are logically sound arguments against the war, and since those more sound arguments do not impugn the integrity of the U.S. military, why pretend his arguments make sense?
They don't make sense. It's a blatant appeal to emotion, nothing more. Women are beaten and killed in the US every day. Sometimes, even by our own soldiers...
Logic is apparently a stranger to the American mind; perhaps emotion will appeal? After all, there was more discussion on Vick's dogs than on these Iraqis.
Hopefully, the emotion of empathy can guide our actions more than the blind patriotism that led the country unquestioningly into the war in Iraq. War is hell, which is why we shouldn't get into it unless absolutely necessary.
I think it's much more then that. It's going to show you the true horror that our soldiers have to endure. It's going to show you the harsh reality of life in Iraq. It's going to show you that our soldiers are under to much stress, due to the fact that they're being kept there after their mission has been completed. I like it how you try to simplify what this movie is going to be about.
Right, but the Indians, many of whom starve themselves on account of their foolish religious beliefs, own some sort of patent on logical thinking? So when's the major studio movie about Vick coming out then?
Evidence of that has been presented on television and in the papers every day to the point of saturation. I didn't simplify what the movie was about. The director did when he tried to boil down an entire conflict to one incident, which is the same trick he used in Casulties of War, a powerful film that says little or nothing about American involvement in Vietna, because its focus is much too specific.
