Jarhead: War movies ain't what they used to be

Jarhead is a movie based on the memoirs of former Marine Anthony Swofford regarding his time in the Persian Gulf war (the first one). And it is probably the most interesting war movie I have ever seen. One of the primary failings of US war films is that they fall into one of two camps. The first: the US army as the ultimate weapon, an ode to American elitism (e.g. The Green Berets (1968)). The other: the horrors of war on the American solider...while he displays that he is the ultimate weapon and an ode to American elitism (e.g. Platoon (1986).

Jarhead manages something different. The army ideology is certainly there and a prime motivator in the first act as we follow Swofford through boot camp and elitism is the impetus to train hard. But once Swofford arrives in the Mid East, the devolution of this ideology begins. The criticisms are subtle: Harhness of military life on relationships, the stress of trained killers (for in truth that is what a soldier is) waiting, and even faulty equipment.

And when finally the war starts, our soldiers are ready to serve their country...only to discover that airstrikes and artillery have eliminated the resistance. And then the war is over and the soldiers have to go home. It would be hard to say that Swofford hates the military because I don't feel that he does at all, but it certainly changed him in a fundamental way. The opening voice over and the final voice over are virtually the same. A soldier learns to kill and hold a gun and even later in life, no matter what he is doing, he will always remember the gun.

This insight, that soldiers are emotionally altered by the army and it influences their lives is of course interesting but less so than Swofford's last line of the film "We are all still in the desert". It is this sentiment that one is left with. His life is not just fundamentally changed, he is in fact lost. To say you are still in the desert is to say that you can not successfully integrate back into "civilized" society.

Jarhead caused me to reflect in a way that only two other movies have ever caused me to reflect when thinking about war. The first film was All Quiet On The Western Front (1930) in which a character having returned from the trenches of WWI, feels isolated from his people back at home. He glimpses his old school master stirring students to join the army just as the master had done when he was a student and in the end the soldier re-enlists so that he can return to the only world he understands, despite the inevitable conclusion that he will die this time.

The second film is Deer Hunter (1978) in which Christopher Walken's character actually loses his mind and becomes a Russian Roulette player in Saigon. Walken's escape is death. Robert DeNiro's character who struggles equally with re-integrating himself only survive because his will is stronger. Which leads to the conclusion that the army trains soldiers to be warriors, killers but leaves no contingencies for the re-training of civilians.

Jarhead is a movie worth seeing for the questions it raises alone and the performances are varied but all enjoyable. Jake Gyllenhaal is amazing and his relationships with Peter Sarsgaard and Jamie Foxx are very well done.