An average movie

To be honest, I really had no idea what to expect from this flick. Well, eventually, even though everybody in my film club seemed to be really enthusiastic about the damned thing, I have to admit that I had a hard time to share their enthusiasm. I mean, I did appreciate the concept and the minimalist approach but, in my opinion, the lack of context was really a big issue. Indeed, what was going on with these soldiers? Was it their first mission? Was it their last mission? How long were they on the road? As a result, it was rather difficult for me to understand how such trained well-equipped soldiers could feel threatened by such a seemingly harmless young boy. Eventually, I think the director was aiming to display that, due to their lack of field experience and proper psychological training and, in this specific case, the lack of true leadership and because, for this job, they are required to be constantly on edge, such young soldiers are basically some ticking time-bomb who are likely to experience EVERY stressful situation as a potential threat (explaining why they would recklessly kill a goat just because it was shaking some bush). In this case, I believe it would have been more efficient to not translate what the Arabian boy was saying as it would have increased the sense of stress and alienation experienced by these soldiers. By the way, if the behavior and the decisions of the soldiers was hardly understandable, it was even more so for the Arabian boy. Indeed, the kid basically grew up in a war zone, he probably had more experience than the 3 soldiers combined so he should have been fully aware that hanging around some hostile isolated stressed-out soldiers who obviously didn’t want to have him around was probably not a great idea. Seriously, what was his deal? Eventually, I’m afraid his whole behavior was basically some plot device and I wish it had been more properly developed. Anyway, to conclude, even though this movie didn’t really work for me, it was still a decent watch and I think it is worth a look.

6/10