Battles with Honor and Humanity:
International Expressions of Modern Warfare
The Global War on Terror is the official term for the international military campaign launched by the United States in response to the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001. A multinational coalition of armed forces formed to address and combat the spread of extremist terrorist violence around the world. The campaign involved open and covert military operations, new security legislation, and diplomatic efforts to block the financing of terrorism. The two primary focal points of the conflict have been the war in Afghanistan and the invasion of Iraq, officially designated as Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom, respectively. From the earliest days of the war, there have been various films made that expressed the fears, anxieties, difficulties, and hardships associated with a conflict that seemed to have no concrete end point.
The portrayal of warfare in American cinema has evolved throughout the years. For example, films made during and after World War II such as Casablanca (1942) or Sands of Iwo Jima (1949) tended to be celebratory, painting the allied forces in a positive light and romanticizing aspects of the experience. However, films created in the late 1970’s and onwards such as The Deer Hunter (1978) and Apocalypse Now (1979) which depicted the Vietnam war, tended to be highly critical of the war effort and were unafraid to show the horrific ramifications of combat. American cinema of the 21st century has had a combination of both styles used to depict the Global War on Terror. However, although the title “global” implies an international effort, most of the well-known or widely released modern war films have been productions based in the United States that feature stories primarily about the role of the American military. This essay will discuss several foreign films that portray the Global War on terror from the perspective of their countries of origin, in order to analyze and discern similarities and differences between their tone and content.
American Standard
To begin, I will first cover some of the American modern war films that had significant impact culturally and at the box office. The first American war film to receive a wide release directly after the September 11th terrorist attacks was Black Hawk Down. Directed by Ridley Scott, the film had an initial release in December of 2001 in order to qualify for the 74th annual Academy Awards in 2002. It received nominations for Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, and Best Sound mixing, going on to win the Oscars for editing and sound. The film was modest financial success as well, earning approximately $173 Million worldwide off a $92 Million budget, scoring the number 1 ranking at the U.S. box office in its first 3 weeks of wide release during January of 2002. The film received critical acclaim for its propulsive action sequences anchored by its somber dramatic tone and dramatic performances of its ensemble cast.
Despite this acclaim, there was concern from audiences and critics that the good reception had less to do with the quality of the film than it did from the wave of nationalism in America after 9/11. In his Cineaste article “The New War Movies as Moral Rearmament: Black Hawk Down & We Were Soldiers”, Tom Doherty rebuked the wave of historical war dramas as “bursts of patriotism ignited by 9/11, expressions of a renascent nation ready to kick ass.” Racism was another concern voiced by dissenters, who feared that imagery of technologically advanced mostly Caucasian soldiers fighting off hordes of faceless dark-skinned people was not only racially insensitive but could serve to stoke racial tensions. In the aftermath of the attacks, there were reports of various people of Indian, Arabic, and south east Asian decent being targets of racist assaults by enraged civilians looking for revenge against people they perceived as associates of Al Qaeda and Muslim terrorists.
Jumping forward to 2014, we see the release of American Sniper, which would end up becoming the highest grossing war film of all time as it earned over 350 Million domestically and $547 Million internationally during its theatrical run. The movie was a biopic based on the exploits of Chris Kyle, a Navy SEAL special operations Sniper credited with over 150 kills during his active duty service from 1999–2009, which included 4 combat tours in Iraq. Directed by venerated actor and filmmaker Clint Eastwood, the movie was accused of being blatant propaganda and hagiography, feeding into nationalist sentiment.
Although the movie shows the mental deterioration of Chris Kyle via PTSD, some critics say the movie fell short of this goal by still enamoring violence, an issue addressed by Agnieszka Soltysik Monnet in her Journal of Popular Culture article “American War Adventure and the Generic Pleasures of Military Violence: Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper.” She notes that “Although Kyle’s struggle with PTSD acknowledges that killing others and watching friends die takes a toll on a soldier, the film ultimately depicts the pleasures of combat as not only worth the price but as offering unexpected rewards in the form of a greater maturity.” And as with Black Hawk Down a decade prior, racial animus remained a serious point of contention as she writes “It deviates little from the war adventure formula as it was developed in the imperial wars of the nineteenth century, pitting agents of white civilization against so-called savages in a dangerous frontier zone.”
In the nearly two decades since 9/11, various other films have been produced that explore different aspects of modern warfare. However, none have made the same impact as the two films; Black Hawk Down established the template of modern warfare film-making, while American Sniper captured the interest of the public on an unprecedented scale. With that in mind, it behooves us to explore other films from around the world that have garnered significant critical and commercial success, to see what messages and lessons can be parsed from a different vantage point.
Walking with Ghosts
In 2016, French visual artist Clément Cogitore transitioned from the world of photography and graphic design into the world of film with his debut feature Neither Heaven nor Earth. The film tells the tale of a squad of French soldiers stationed at a remote outpost in north-eastern Afghanistan. What starts out as a realistic drama about the drudgery of modern warfare in a cultural and political quagmire soon reveals itself to be a unique type of psychological horror film. As the film progresses, some of the French soldiers mysteriously vanish without a trace. The stalwart French commander believes that they have fallen prey to an insidious cell of highly skilled Taliban operatives. However, when the local leader of the enemy Taliban militia reveals that some of his men have also mysteriously disappeared, the soldiers come face to face with the impossible reality that something supernatural is at play.
Neither Heaven nor Earth first establishes the tragedy of the real-life situation faced by so many western armies stuck in the cultural political quagmire of the war in Afghanistan. From there, it uses the supernatural horror element as a metaphor to explore the psychological and moral trauma suffered in the conflict by combatants and civilians alike. In the Film Comment article “Vanishing Point”, film journalist Yonca Talu summarizes the central conceit at play:
At the heart of Neither Heaven nor Earth lies a dichotomy between the mysticism embraced by the Afghan locals and the rationalism championed by the French troops. The rational stance is most fully embodied by the rigorous and dispassionate Captain Bonassieu (Jérémie Renier), the obstinate commander of the outpost and a brutal colonizer in his own right. His soldiers enjoy a privileged authority over the civilians, who are denied some basic rights (including free ownership of their lands) and kept at bay from the military camp, while their military overseers turn up without notice and raid the village whenever they deem it necessary.
This conflict experienced by Afghan civilians stuck between ruthless local warlords and western foreign occupying invaders that hold them in contempt builds into a larger treatise on faith versus reason, that runs in parallel between believing that the war is just and the reality of recognizing the death and destruction it causes.
As the soldiers come to terms with the supernatural and the questioning of their faith, there is increased use of Christian imagery and mythology such as the use of crosses, candle vigils, and reference to the apocalypse as told in Revelations. At the same time, local religion is also a key component. The vanishing concept is loosely based on a piece of Islamic folklore taken from the Quranic verse known as the Shurat al-Kahf, in which a group of men seeking gods protection are hidden in a clave and put to sleep until they emerge many years later in a literal and figurative enlightenment. In the same Film Comment article, Cogitore reveals part the intent to use that rarely told perspective as he says, “when we watch the film in the West, we say, ‘What is this strange story that speaks of this cavern?’ When I show the film in the Muslim world, they’re very surprised to see it in there because it’s so close to them.” At the conclusion of the film, Captain Antares, unable to vouch for the missing soldiers, sets up an animal sacrifice at a nearby sacred site upon which he calls in an airstrike to kill the livestock he has put in position. The squad uses the charred remains of the sheep as stand ins for the body parts of their vanished comrades, and Captain Antares takes responsibility via court martial for the loss of the men that he has disguised as a tragic friendly fire incident. In combining the spirituality of Christian and Islamic faiths with the brutal technological efficiency of killing in the modern age, Neither Heaven Nor Earth serves as a testament to the guilt and remorse of western occupational forces that had done irreputable things in the Afghanistan war while also serving as a type of peace offering to the middle eastern and Islamic culture that had unfairly come under attack due to the actions of an violent extremist minority.
Dragon Rising
The next film in this study comes as the result of a substantial period in the history of China and its place as a global superpower in the coming years. Operation Red Sea (2018) is a heavily embellished account of a Chinese naval operation that took place during the outbreak of the Yemeni Civil War in 2015, in which over 200 foreign nationals and over 600 Chinese citizens were rescued from fierce fighting. The operation was an unprecedented success of Chinese military force projection, announcing to the world that China’s massive military was indeed capable of dealing with highly sensitive crises on the complex modern geopolitical battlefield, something that for many decades had been the providence of western/European military superpowers. Operation Red Sea builds upon the previous success of the 2016 action film Operation Mekong, itself an embellished dramatization of a real world military crisis in which China lead a multinational military operation to capture drug running pirates responsible for killing thirteen Chinese civilians, an incident which became known as the Mekong River Massacre in 2011.
Operation Red Sea is an explosive bit of agitprop, in both its abundant use of pyrotechnics and the heavy messages at play. It is one of the most technically proficient and exhilarating war movies of the last decade; it is also unabashedly and unequivocally state funded propaganda, created as a celebration of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s 90th Anniversary. There are many shots and scenes that put the arsenal of Chinese naval forces on display, particularly in the opening sequence in which the central team of special forces commandos conduct a highly coordinated rescue mission in which they kill multiple Somali pirates with tactical precision and overwhelming force. This aggrandization of military might and Chinese global power continues throughout the film, as the Naval Special forces squad known as the “Xiao long” or “Sea Dragons” (equivalent in organization to the famous US Navy SEALs) race through a fictional middle eastern country, laying waste to militant rebels and terrorist combatants.
In her review for Variety, critic Maggie Lee tries to capture the magnitude of carnage on display as she describes the “savage firefights that move from wrecked buildings onto chaotic streets, the volley of ammo so stunningly diverse, powerful and indiscriminate that it’s impossible to take stock of human outcome.” A completely fictional side story regarding terrorist attempts to obtain nuclear material is added into the chaotic proceedings. While it allows for further spectacular exploits, it muddles plot clarity and the real-world events as lee explains “Any attempt by the audience to make sense of the situation is blown to smithereens by explosion after deafening explosion.”
Despite the grand liberties taken in the name of drama and the overt nationalism involved in its production, Operation Red Sea aims for some semblance of a serious rumination on war when things aren’t exploding. There is an abundant amount of gore on display in the form of bodies mangled by explosions and grievous bodily trauma suffered by all manner of bullet wounds. The characters take deaths seriously and mourn in the brief pauses between gun battles. The Chinese soldiers even lament the destruction in their wake, as one commando laments “We saved their lives, but not their homes.” Overall, the formula appeared to be a success, as Operation Red Sea went on to earn over 3.65 Billion Yen (Approximately $575 Million) in world wide box office, which places it as of this writing as the fourth highest grossing Chinese film of all time. Moreover, the film was chosen as China’s official entry for the 91st Academy Awards contender for Best Foreign Film.
In the end, the biggest moral struggle of this film is nothing with in the script itself, but rather the intention of it as militarized messaging. In its attempt to show itself as a force for good, the film belies the more aggressive business policies in recent years that would seek to exploit impoverished African nations. In the Forbes opinion piece “What China Wants from Africa? Everything”, Market analyst Panos Mourdoukoutas lays it out bluntly: “China wants everything from Africa: its strategic location, its oil, its rare earth metals, and its fish, leaving African nations indebted to Beijing.” It remains to be seen how China will move forward with its global objectives, but at least as far as messaging goes, the propaganda blockbuster Operation Red Sea is a resounding success.
Treading A New Warpath
China is not the only nation heavily investing in the production of high-end military propaganda. India, which has a long history of indigenously produced war films reflecting its real-world conflicts, has most recently thrown down the gauntlet for modern warfare action cinema with the film Uri: The Surgical Strike (2019). On 18 September 2016, four heavily armed militants infiltrated and assaulted an Indian Army Base in Uri, Baramulla district, Jammu and Kashmir, India. The attack resulted in 19 Indian Army personnel dead with as many as 80–100 personnel wounded. In the early hours of 29 September 2016, the Indian government responded to this terrorist attack by conducting a surgical strike against militant base camps along the Kashmir Line of Control, where Indian and Pakistani forces delineate control over the region. Uri: The Surgical Strike is a dramatization of the two attacks, though it also includes a recreation of the 4 June 2015 ambush on the India-Myanmar border which resulted in 18 Indian soldiers killed.
From my time as a Military Intelligence Analyst, the sensitive nature of this subject matter was evident. This is in part because of the relationship between Pakistani intelligence (ISI) and the militant organizations within the country that play a role in regional terrorism, to include neighboring countries such as Afghanistan where I was stationed. The sensitive nature of the material also refers to the longstanding animus between India and Pakistan, which means being cognizant of the nationalist biases in any piece of fiction based on the real-world conflicts between the two countries. In the Stimson research center publication Investigating Crises: South Asia’s Lessons, Evolving Dynamics, and Trajectories, former Foreign Secretary of Pakistan Riaz Mohammad Khan emphasizes that “the unremitting hostility between the two countries, which is partly rooted in the traumatic circumstances of their independence, exists alongside a reservoir of centuries of common experience and cultural overlap.” In his chapter titled Conflict Resolution and Crisis Management: Challenges in Pakistan-India Relations, Khan summarizes the India/Pakistan situation:
The Kashmir dispute lies at the heart of Pakistan-India tensions and conflict. Pakistan regards Kashmir as an unfinished agenda of the partition of British India and emphasizes the Kashmiris’ right to choose between the two successor states. Kashmir stirs deep emotions in Pakistan as a large segment of the population in eastern Punjab shares common ethnicity in addition to centuries old cultural links. On the other hand, India regards the part of Kashmir under its control as a symbol of India’s multi-religious and multicultural democratic persona.
From its first few minutes, Uri masterfully acquits itself to modern warfare action filmmaking techniques. The opening barrage gives way to an extended sequence where we are introduced to our hero, Major Vihan Singh Shergill (Vicky Kaushal), leading a team of Indian commandos on a retaliatory raid against the militants who massacred a convoy of troops. Major Vihran serves as a fictional stand in for the real-life ground operatives who conducted the dangerous mission. Sharing almost equal screen time is Paresh Rawal as Govind Bhardwaj, the Indian National Security adviser responsible for both the complex strategic components and delicate political aspects necessary to ensure a successful operation. This structure hues closely to the critically acclaimed but widely controversial Zero Dark Thirty (2012), which uses a main character, loosely based on a real person, to connect plot points and events that were not necessarily related to each other in real life. Moreover, Uri also pays close attention to the immense intelligence apparatus needed to hunt down terrorists.
The action in Uri is fast paced and technically acute, rivaling recent action-heavy American contemporaries such as Act of Valor (2012) or Lone Survivor (2013). Uri incorporates the heightened melodrama, tactical realism, and bombastic pyrotechnics of these films along with the thrilling elements of espionage and politics. However, unlike its counterparts, Uri appears to wholeheartedly embraces its role as an overtly patriotic tribute to its nation’s fighting forces. While the movie is unabashedly full of clichés such as orphaned children, sick mothers, and mustache twirling villains, the film knows exactly how to mash on those emotional chords for maximum manipulative effect. In some cases, this is literal, as the score features a deft combination of traditional battle hymn overtures and slickly produced percussive electronic beats.
During the screening I attended in January of 2019, I was curious to see the audience reaction to such politically charged material. One thing I was particularly worried about was a highly confrontational line seen in the trailer where the major taunts a dying terrorist by saying “Convey our greetings to the 72 virgins! Tell them to wait for the feast, we are going to send a lot of guests.” The line was even reportedly removed from the trailers in December of 2018, a month prior to the films release. There was ultimately not much of a reaction to that line in the theater; however there were several obvious audience reactions to many of the thrilling combat scenes, to include one female audience member shouting out in elation when a female helicopter pilot character fires off a barrage of machine gun fire during the climactic final battle.
The surgical strike was fervently condemned by the Pakistani government, and in the years since there have been numerous flare ups and cross border fire incidents. A report from the Asia-Pacific current affairs news magazine The Diplomat estimates that, just in 2017, there were as many as many as 12 civilians were killed and 79 injured due to cross-border firing. Despite these facts, the film completely avoids any rumination on the collateral damage and loves lost by these constant conflicts in Kashmir. It appears that, unlike the U.S. or China, India is fervently committed to its image as a powerful New India, murky morality and questionable tactics be damned.
Conclusion
Using a combination of serious dramatic themes, motivational melodrama, and cutting-edge techniques, international cinema seems to be coming into its own in terms of modern warfare of film. Unbound by the tastes of American audiences, other countries have found their own voice to express their experiences in the age of the Global War on Terror. What’s most fascinating about this emergence is that the morality of the films is not just contained within the subject matter, but a consequence of their very production as pieces of reconciliation, nationalist sentiment, or outright propaganda. As technology advances and opportunities to make film proliferate, we may yet see even more unique forms of expression about modern warfare that Americans could scarcely imagine.
Works Cited
Doherty, Tom. “The New War Movies as Moral Rearmament: Black Hawk Down
& We Were Soldiers.” Cineaste, vol. 27, no. 3, Summer 2002, p. 4.
Inzamam, Qadri and Haziq Qadri. “The Human Cost of India-Pakistan Conflict.”
TheDiplomat.com, 24 March 2018. https://thediplomat.com/2018/03/the-human-cost-of-india-pakistan-conflict/
Khan, Riaz Mohammad. “Conflict Resolution And Crisis management: Challenges in Pakistan-
India Relations.” Stimson Center, January 2018. https://crises.stimson.org/conflictresolution/
Lalwani, Sameer and Hannah Haegeland “Investigating Crises: South Asia’s Lessons, Evolving
Dynamics, and Trajectories.” Stimson Center, January 2018. https://crises.stimson.org/
Lee, Maggie. “Film Review: ‘Operation Red Sea’: Explosions Overwhelm Character in Dante
Lam’s Propaganda Pic, in Which an Elite Chinese Naval Team Battles Terrorists in Africa.” Variety Movie Reviews, 2 March 2018, p. 1.
McGuigan, John. “On the Danger of Heroes: ‘Black Hawk Down’s’ Transformation from
Narrative Journalism to Cinematic Spectacle.” Midwest Quarterly, vol. 52, no. 3, Spring 2011, pp. 221–238.
Mourdoukoutas, Panos. “What China Wants from Africa? Everything.” Forbes.com, Forbes
Media LLC, 4 May 2019. https://www.forbes.com/sites/panosmourdoukoutas/2019/05/04/what-china-wants-from-africa-everything/
Schmid, Thomas. “China & South Asia.” Boxoffice, vol. 155, no. 4, April 2019, pp. 221–223.
Soltysik Monnet, Agnieszka. “American War Adventure and the Generic Pleasures of Military
Violence: Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper.” Journal of Popular Culture, vol. 51, no. 6, Dec. 2018, pp. 1376–1397.
Talu, Yonca. “Vanishing Point.” Film Comment, vol. 52, no. 4, July 2016, pp. 34–39.
“China Focus: Box Office Success of ‘Operation Red Sea’ Echoes Yemen Rescue
Mission.” Xinhua News Agency, 2018, http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-03/13/c_137036376.htm
