Officially, the Second Gulf War, which started with the invasion and occupation of Iraq, ended in 2011. However, the United States, once again leading a coalition of Western European countries and their allies, returned to Iraq in 2014, albeit in reduced numbers. Currently, the U.S. mission remains one defined by training and advising Iraqi or coalition troops, but if you followed the American news media, the Iraq War ended more than a decade ago, its aftermath all but memory-holed except by military scholars, politically oriented academics, and, of course, the men and women who served in Iraq from 2003-2011.
Whether by intent or by accident, the aptly titled Warfare, co-written and co-directed by Alex Garland (Annihilation, Ex Machina) and Ray Mendoza, his military advisor on Civil War, last year’s controversy-courting, speculative war film, will, however briefly, bring the Iraq War back to U.S. movie screens and the public consciousness. Unlikely to linger in said public consciousness, it unquestionably stands out as a must-see film, not just because of its supremely crafted immersive qualities — its major selling point marketing-wise — but for the overwhelming sense of futility inherent in the mission conducted by U.S. soldiers, by turns brave, heroic, and resilient, and its immediate aftermath.
Sent into Ramadi, an Iraqi city roughly 70 miles to the west of Baghdad, in the middle of a months-long battle to secure the city from insurgents (i.e., Iraqis who resisted the U.S.-led occupation after the fall of Saddam Hussein and his regime in the spring of 2003), Warfare centres on a U.S. Navy SEALS squad, Alpha One, sent to a nondescript street to conduct surveillance on a nearby open market. Almost immediately, they take control of a two-family unit, unintentionally, if predictably, terrorizing the residents, men, women, and children. Presumably seen on approach to the two-floor building, they’ve marked themselves — and the families living there — as targets for the unseen insurgents surrounding them on multiple sides.
Working from a heavily researched script dependent on the partial, incomplete memories of the men who fought and lived through the engagement, Warfare promises to deliver the closest equivalent to a non-mediated experience of the war. From the get-go, Garland and Mendoza foreground the Navy SEALS’ professionalism, their intense focus on their individual and collective tasks, built on months, if not years, of highly specialized training, and a camaraderie borne out of that same training and experience together.
When the inevitable happens, a prolonged, multi-prong attack by well-armed and well-coordinated insurgents follows. The audience, like the SEALS onscreen, are thrown into an intense, harrowing experience. The soundtrack captures every explosive bullet. Thousands, if not tens of thousands of rounds, whiz through the air and striking (or missing) their targets. The men carry out their predesignated roles efficiently through muscle memory and specialized skills. When wounded, their ear-splitting screams pierce the gunfire at an incredibly loud volume.
For all of its verisimilitude, though, Warfare will remain a second-order experience. Those who lived it know it best because they experienced it. We can only watch and listen and take whatever we want from the film. For many, Warfare might be, at worst, an unforgettably visceral, if surface-deep, experience. Others might leave their respective movie theatre with the wrong “message” from Warfare, focusing on the military fetishism on display (i.e., the coolness factor) and ignoring everything else, including the near-loss of life, the debilitating injuries suffered by several men, and the long-term consequences–physical, mental, and emotional–of surviving a war fought in another country.
But if there’s one overlapping theme to take from Warfare, it’s a simple, oft-forgotten one: War, for all its human and material costs, is often, if not universally, futile. The battle depicted in Warfare wins nothing, not land, not hearts and minds, nor does it serve as a key turning point in the larger battle or war. Instead, the SEALS leave almost as quickly as they enter and occupy the two-floor building, one among many such buildings. As they retreat to base, leaving trails of viscera, blood, and body parts behind, the insurgents, their faces almost entirely covered, emerge from the surrounding buildings, retaking the street the SEALS briefly held.
