Men on Film

By Ben Neale, Spring 2011

I am not a huge fan of war movies. I saw the “Hurt Locker,” and I have seen “Saving Private Ryan,” “A Thin Red Line,” and of course, “Platoon.” These days, I’ve tried to stay away from depictions of gratuitous violence, since I hear my fair share of traumatic stories as a community mental health therapist. That being said, as a documentary film lover, I came across the gem, “Restrepo.” The full range of normative masculinity is played out in this complexly tragic feature-length film recently released to video.

Directed and produced by Tim Hetherington, the award-winning photographer and documentarian, and by Sebastian Junger, author of “The Perfect Storm,” “Restrepo” chronicles the 2nd Platoon Battle Company’s deployment in Afghanistan’s deadly Korengal Valley. Winner of the Grand Jury Prize for a Documentary at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, and recently receiving an Oscar nomination for Best Documentary, “Restrepo” captures the day-to-day activities of the men during a 15-month deployment beginning in May 2007.

After the death of Juan “Doc” Restrepo, the soldiers push deeper into the valley to establish an outpost that they name after their fallen comrade. From painstakingly long bouts of boredom to quick bursts of bullet-filled firefights, the film provides assorted performances of culturally approved masculinity such that vulnerability is rarely expressed and violence is fueled by channeled aggression.

Many of these brutally illuminating moments allow the audience to see the men’s thinly-veiled emotional needs. With closely guarded boundaries of permissible male activities, expressions of the men’s care for one another are both sanctioned by instances of rough play and couched in homophobic language. For example, there is footage of the men enjoying a meal that incorporates a prominent moment of appreciation for their cook that spreads to the other men. Several soldiers with big smiles converge on their beloved cook, manhandling him with hugs and saying, “Don’t fight it,” as they put him in a chokehold and start tickling him. The cook asks an observing soldier, “Why aren’t they messing with you anymore?” The soldier responds, “I was one of the first ones that got messed with.” Another soldier affectionately chimes in, “Look at him, look at how sexy he is.” Yet another joshes the second soldier adding, “He is a beautiful man, I would fuck him back in the States.” This comment is met with an uproar of laughter.

Similar interactions ensue, including wrestling matches and spontaneous dance parties to techno tracks featuring the lyrics, “Touch me, I want to feel your body, your heartbeat next to mine.” The poignancy of this scene was so striking because the soldiers’ obvious needs for physical touch and emotional intimacy stood in stark contrast to their stoic presentations throughout the rest of the film.

These awkwardly tender moments occurring in the midst of a war zone are tempered by examples of familiar and condoned male violence. Steiner, a Battle Company soldier, exclaims after making “contact” with the enemy, “That was a good firefight…packing up a bunch of rounds…can’t get a better high…it’s like crack you know? You can skydive or bungee jump or kayak, but once you’ve been shot at, you can’t come down, you can’t top that.” In a later scene, another soldier articulates a wanton disregard for life declaring, “I wish they were closer, so I could have seen them when I killed them.” This sentiment of bloodlust comes from the same guy, who when talking about growing up, shares that his parents were “hippies” and did not allow him to have any toy guns. It’s as if the Army’s omnipresent message to kill silenced any semblance of his parents’ articulation of nonviolence.

Intentional or not, the filmmakers do an amazing job of depicting many faces of U.S. masculinity during war. Audiences viewing other military films see similarly tough, violent, and indomitable men. Yet in this film, we see glimpses of confusion, despair, and fatigue. As the film goes on, one starts to see the inconsolable ramifications of war as they lose their fallen comrade—and attempt to refocus and keep fighting. So much of the film communicates that during war, there is little time to process or heal from the psychological torture of constant anxiety. Like men in the field of battle or the living room’s friendly confines, men’s distress often translates to violent and traumatic behavior leaving victims (the enemy or family member) suffering in the aftermath.

The perceived lack of emotional outlets during war is encapsulated toward the end of the film during a pep talk given by a captain. He passionately taps into their collective impatience, frustration, and need for vengeance by imploring his men to, “Make them feel like we do right now.” The captain strategically manipulates his soldiers by turning their raw feelings into the motivation to inflict pain on others, rather than helping them process their emotions surrounding the loss of their friend. This tactic, probably used by commanders throughout time, exemplifies the kind of endorsed masculinity that retaliates with further death and destruction instead of allowing for reflection and internal calm.