Restrepo’ portrays the face of modern war

So many emotions/thoughts flooded over me during “Restrepo” that it’s hard to process them. In fact, I couldn’t do it during the screening that I just got out of. So I’m still doing it.

“Restrepo” is the title of the documentary about the war in Afghanistan, which was produced and directed by the author Sebastian Junger and author/photographer/filmmaker Tim Hetherington. Part of a larger project, which included Junger’s nonfiction book “War,” “Restrepo” follows a platoon of soldiers over a number of months in 2007 during their 15-month deployment in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley.

The soldiers, to be specific, are members of Second Platoon, B Company, 2nd Battalion, 503rd Infantry Reginemt (airborne) of the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team. The film’s title comes from the name of one of the soldiers, a popular medic, PFC Juan S. Restrepo , who was killed early in the platoon’s deployment. On assignment for Vanity Fair magazine , Junger and Hetherington were embedded with Second Platoon for weeks at a time, capturing the soldiers in every imaginable situation, from being under fire to doing an impromptu dance to the song “Touch Me” (by Gunther and the Sunshine Girls ).

You can approach “Restrepo” from a number of perspectives.

1, You can look at it through the prism of war critic. If you are no fan of America’s role in Afghanistan, you’re bound to be horrified. “Restrepo,” though it pointedly avoids commenting on why the troops are in Afghanistan — not to mention the dangerous Korengal Valley — shows how difficult the troops’ job is, how frustrating it is to achieve anything resembling satisfactory results and how, in the process of fighting the Taliban, what the troops do so often alienates the very Afghan citizens they want to befriend. And, of course, what the film tells you is that, after all the pain and effort, the Army ultimately deserted the Korengal Valley, leaving open the question of what, if anything, was accomplished.

2. You can see it as a portrayal of mere boys, many of whom are barely in their 20, facing great danger and forced into adopting roles that would cow men far more mature. For many viewers, this, too, is likely to be horrifying. Are young soldiers really this brutal, taunting a dead enemy who has just been torn apart by automatic-weapons fire? And the answer is, yes, they are. Always have been. And if you don’t emerge from “Restrepo” with a better understanding of why this is, you just aren’t capable of getting war and those who fight it.

3. You can also see “Restrepo” as an example of war journalism, a film that follows in the long line of war documentaries, many of the most recent  — “Gunner Palace,” for example — which explore the war in Iraq. Viewers who take this route are bound to be impressed with what Junger and Hetherington have put on the screen, and how unselfconsciously they film it. Except for a few fragmentary moments, they are not a part of the action. Unlike most of today’s life-as-we-live-it reality TV shows, “Restrepo” really does, for the most part, adopt the fly-on-the-wall technique.

4. You can even see the film as the latest development in our cultural obsession with so-called “reality.” The soldiers do stand-up interviews, and are appropriately serious as they explain, long after the fact, the emotions they felt during their various missions. They mug for the camera, though they never feel as falsely “real” as, say, the “Jersey Shore” cast does. Whether they’re dancing, eating, smoking, dodging incoming rounds or mourning their dead comrades, the troops come across as fully comfortable living in the glow of a videocamera — which may be the biggest difference between these soldiers and those of previous generations.

In the end, I choose to see “Restrepo” in the middle two categories. I’ve never seen a film that better captures the experience that I remember as a young 21-year-old soldier in Vietnam. I’m going to be long haunted by the bravado, mixed with crippling senses of grief, portrayed by solders who talk of not being able to sleep or of wanting to hold on to their war memories “because that’s all I have.”

I’m not sure when, or if, I’ll ever be able to forget the faces … young, pained, proud, troubled, struggling to explain the unexplainable. I’ve never met a veteran yet who’s been comfortable trying to accurately portray his (or, these days, her) war experiences to anyone who wasn’t there. It always sounds so melodramatic or self-important or not important enough.

Above all else, “Restrepo” makes that struggle unnecessary. It is what it is, a war documenary that, perhaps as well as any documentary ever has, puts you in the heart of the action. From that point, your reaction is entirely up to you.

Below : The trailer for “Restrepo.”