Restrepo

Restrepo, a documentary about a year in the life of the soldiers manning Fire Base Restrepo in Afghanistan’s Khogal Valley, is phenomenal.  Expertly photographed and taughtly edited, it puts us right there in a valley that defines remote and isolated, and it helps us understand just what it is that we ask our young people to do when they don our country’s uniform and ship off to war.

Here’s the deal: National Geographic Channel made a deal with the U.S. Army to send a documentary team along with NAME OF UNIT on its # OF MONTHS deployment to Afghanistan.  The documentarians captured the daily lives of the soldiers at the firebase – their routines, their hijinks, their near-daily fighting with the Taliban enemy who controlled the valley before their arrival.  They also captured the unit on patrol -  cameramen Tim Heatherington and Sebastian Junger didn’t stay behind the wire – doing everything from trying to bond with the locals to fighting its way out of an ambush.

The effect?  We see these soldiers as real people, brave and afraid and risking their lives for an objective of questionable value.  This isn’t a movie about bugles and drums and soaring eagles.  It’s a movie about soldiers, low paid but well led, doing their best.  Restrepo is worth your time.