The Hurt Locker

The Hurt Locker (2008) is an incredibly tense film about the current war in Iraq that is filled with intense moments of action.

By turning her attention to one facet of the war - following the (mis)fortunes of a specialist bomb disposal unit in the U.S. Army - director Kathryn Bigelow is able to keep the plot focused but, at the same time, is able to explore some of the larger themes associated with modern warfare. Although on the periphery, these themes are what lingered in my mind after the film had ended.

Of particular interest were: how defective military hardware can be responsible for the loss of lives; the difficulty of dealing with feelings of guilt and culpability when a comrade is killed in action; and the alienation a soldier feels when attempting to re-integrate into life at home after a tour of duty has ended.

The first point is pertinent at this time due to the media attention in this country (Britain) upon the substandard equipment being supplied to our troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan. It is alarming to see that this issue affects the American military as well.

At the same time, and of interest on an academic level, is the parallels that can be drawn between the events portrayed in Bigelow's film and those captured by writers who fought in the Great War.

For example, in Ford Madox Ford's tetralogy, Parade's End, Christopher Tietjens blames himself for the death of one of the soldiers under his command, O Nine Morgan. If Tietjens had granted the man home leave then death may have been avoided. Later, Tietjens experiences hallucinations about the dead soldier's eyes.

And in Siegfried Sassoon's poem, 'Repression of War Experience', we are told that the soldier who is the subject of the poem is 'quiet and peaceful, summering safe at home; / You'd never think there was a bloody war on!' The tone of these lines makes it clear that even on leave, the war weighs heavily on the combatant's mind.