The Hurt Locker

I watched The Hurt Locker again last night. It’s a compelling story. But especially in terms of filmmaking, it’s fascinating.
Kathryn Bigelow, the director, doesn’t waste a detail. Every shot is efficient; every camera movement draws our attention to what Bigelow wants us to see. The tired blink of Sanborn’s eye as he mans the sniper rifle in the desert, which James observes… he asks for the juice box, which, based on his prior selfishness, we assume is for himself… and the camera tracks its progress as James quietly hands it over. It’s the juice box here that is significant, as it symbolizes that James’ character is perhaps more complicated than we had thought.
Or how about the scene in the beginning when James is about to defuse the first bomb. We hear his heavy breathing inside the suit as he approaches the IED, we see a brief shot through the visor, we pull back to see him walking alone, we view the scene through the metal grillework of an apartment window. There’s a terrific sense of context. We sense just how many people are viewing this scene, and we are conscious of their perspectives: James, the other soldiers, the Iraqis in the apartments alongside. And since Bigelow’s efficient style has already signified to us that no shot will be wasted, we know that something as seemingly innocuous as the view through the grillework signals a potential menace; someone must be looking through that viewpoint. Indeed, that initial shot, uninhabited and peaceful, eventually reveals itself as the perspective of a man hustling downstairs to detonate his bomb.
Bigelow accomplishes everything — creating suspense, furthering plot, revealing character — through details like these. And the handheld camerawork and quick zooms mimic how an actual bystander would view the action. As a result, we (sitting comfortably on our couches) feel like we’re actually there. We get enveloped in the film. And then, an occasional sustained, zoomed-out shot punctuates what has just happened, like a period at the end of a sentence, and reminds us that this is just a story.
But, of course, that’s the genius of this forceful Iraq war film: it’s not a story. It’s real.

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