Redacted as an illustration of the notion of power
Redacted is a movie directed by Brian De Palma. It was released in 2007.
It is based on true events as it is the reconstruction of the rape and murder of a sixteen-year-old Iraqi girl by American soldiers in Samarra (Iraq) in 2006.
It is told entirely through 'found footage' (i.e. lengths of films or video tapes, shots or series of shots of a specified nature or subject, for example 'news footage').
The main issues it raises are the abuse of power (i.e. the perpetration of an unlawful act, done in an official capacity), more particularly military power abuse but also the misuse of power, especially that of the media, often called the fourth power, and of political power, and as a consequence the manipulation of truth which, right from the start of the film, is said to be the first casualty (=victim) of war.
1. Military power
The main story line of the film is that a squadron of US soldiers based in Iraq decide to avenge the death of one of their comrades who was blown to pieces by a bomb planted by Iraqi terrorists/insurgents.
The film director shows that instead of fighting against the insurgents on the battle field, they abuse their power and go on a hateful, vengeful raid on an Iraqi house where they kill the whole family (except for the father who had been previously arrested).
Although not all the soldiers involved in the operation were willing to go, under peer pressure they eventually do and clearly abuse their power and authority as the invading military force in Iraq and turn a military operation into a horrendous criminal expedition.
So why show such horrors?
Of course everybody knows that war is hell and makes monsters of people, that innocents suffer and die in ways and numbers beyond our comprehension - and yet, we still allow it to happen, again and again, by yielding to the pressure of the powers that be, i.e. those in control who often make wrong decisions and contribute to the horrors perpetrated in war. Redacted denounces the reasons behind this indifference and 'apathy' and most of them lie in the following 'form and location of power'.
2. The Fourth Power = The Media
The starting point of Brian De Palma's imaginary reconstruction is that the media, more particularly American TV networks, provide an extremely limited, censored and sanitized view of the reality on the battle ground
By telling the story of one young girl, raped, shot in the face, her corpse burnt, her family slaughtered, Redacted restates truths that have been carefully edited out of our daily discourse about “surgical strikes” (the war seen as a video game on TV!) and politicians' promises of a "quick war".
Actually, the word 'redacted' means 'prepared, revised or edited for publication', which means that the media do not or cannot do their job properly, so that the war we are shown on TV and elsewhere is not the real war.
Therefore, there is a lot of material that we do not usually see but which is shown throughout the film:
- soldiers' home videos (showing the battalion of US Marines’ daily life thanks to systematic filming by one of them, using a small digital camera)
- objective, artful French reportage (documenting US soldiers watching over a checkpoint)
- close-circuit security cameras (filming the US soldiers in one part of their military precinct, thus showing their moral dilemmas but also their gross and occasionally illicit behavior)
- embedded journalists allowed to follow the US army on particular operations but whose reports are 'redacted' (here they follow the US Marines and interview them on a raid on an Iraqi house to find evidence against suspected terrorists but they are thrown out of the place as soon as they become too insistent)
- the eerie green footage from the troops' helmet-mounted night vision cams (filming the brutal rape and murder of an Iraqi girl and her family on a nighttime raid on this defenseless Iraqi family)
- angry Iraqi TV news (showing a video of the terrorists’ decapitation of an American soldier held hostage or the moving testimony of the only survivor of the murderous raid, that is to say the father of the family)
- video chats between soldiers and their families back home (showing a father and his guilt-ridden son talking about what to do to denounce the crimes)
- YouTube clips from activists, terrorists and insurgents (shown on the terrorists’ own Web site).
- posts on a girl’s blog as well as on a soldier’s own blog (in which she violently criticizes the US soldiers’ horrific actions while he denounces his former comrades’ criminal acts, his face covered with a hood)
- home videos on returning to civilian life after the war (in which a US Marine tells his friends and girlfriend about the atrocities committed in Iraq before bursting out in tears)
Actually, Redacted is entirely made up of this fictitious "found" footage to recreate the appalling images which have been systematically removed (= ‘redacted’) from the "news" about Iraq.
3. Political Power
In fact, political power can be held responsible for the illegitimate war that was fought in Iraq as it was not mandated by a UN resolution and was launched and waged at first on the misleading assumption that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (WMD), which soon turned out to be entirely wrong. Therefore, the film also denounces the manipulative tendency of political power in our democracies.
As some critic put it, "the film's impact is impossible to dismiss. It feels like a well-aimed punch to the gut - or perhaps a stab in the heart."
As long as wars keep breaking out all over the world, the least we can do is listen, watch and testify, which is what Brian De Palma had in mind with Redacted.
IMDB plot synopsis of Redacted
This film is about the real-life rape and killing of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl by U.S. soldiers with shocking images that will leave some viewers in tears.
Inspired by one of the most serious crimes committed by American soldiers in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, it spares the audience no brutality to get its message across.
Made in a deliberately episodic form, Redacted tells various stories about the war in Iraq, ostensibly from different viewpoints. One film portion by a French filmmaker tells the story of U.S. soldiers watching over checkpoints. In another episode, a superior soldier makes a casual mistake dealing with garbage that was set out in a road and is blown to bits. It's all leading to the pivotal rape and murder of the pretty girl who is discovered by the soldiers on a raid of an Iraqi house in order to find evidence. One night, the drunken and mostly morally lost U.S. soldiers discuss going back for the "skank" whom they saw in the house they raided. One soldier straps a camera to his helmet, and the footage of the girl's rape is secured.
The rest of the film mostly deals with measures taken by the army against the criminals. A final scene has a soldier from the criminals' unit confessing to his friends a war story that he will never forget: the plundering and murder of the Iraqi girl.
RYM film review of Redacted
When I was 14 years old one leftist history teacher asked us to comment on the upcoming Iraq War, to say if it was justified (or not) and why. Back then I was uninterested in politics or war so I only knew about it from television and newspapers... and I thought it was justified, I did believe in Bush's justification for the war... the teacher was kind of disappointed with me.
This was my introduction to international politics. Years later when the politicians admitted that there was never any WMDs I was not surprised (it was obvious then) but I realized that they were nothing but liars all along. And even though I was an ignorant kid who had nothing to do with this war, since then I have always felt guilty about thinking otherwise.
And as time passes we only learn more about the crimes they committed, both from positions of power and on the ground. If this film is one-sided, it is because the War on Iraq was an illegal, immoral, one-sided war of aggression. The director doesn't even bother to attack the war or the occupation or the actions or the soldiers because what they did is indefensible.
The real villain in this film is the media, this is Brian De Palma's attack against the journalists, the newspapers, the tv channels, the media conglomerates of the United States of America who were part in the abuse and murder of the people in Iraq. They were part of this and they have the blood of innocents on their hands.
At times the metaphor is way too obvious but that does contribute to making a point about the soldiers' morality: If the leaders of the nation can lie and kill over nothing why shouldn't they do the same?
