Everyone Has Own Justice-The Hurt Locker
His helmet is restricting his sight, and his protective suit is heavey as a wet blanket. His heart is palpitating and it might to explode soon. His breathing is wild because of tension. One step, one more step, and one more step. He is walking toward I.E.D(Improvised Explosive Device) for disarming. It means he is closer to death. These are just scenes of the movie for us, but these scenes are real life for them in Iraq. Yes, it`s true. Someone is still dying there.
The Hurt Locker shows us how the soldier`s life is going, also it shows us for the general American`s perspective on the Iraq war. This movie was nominated for nine Academy Awards, and won six Oscars including best picture and best director. The Hurt Locker was premiered in 2008. This Iraq war movie created a sensation because it described very vividly about the Iraq war.
At the beginning of this movie The New York Times war correspondent Chris Hedges said “The rush of battle is often a potent and lethal addiction, for war is drug.” A fear of death paralyzes solder`s sense during fighting, but after the battle done all of all fear, pain and sadness flood into their heart. Sergeant William James(Jeremy Renner) who specializes in explosives arrives at E.D.O(Explosive Ordnance Disposal) unit in Baghdad. In there, he disarms explosives with Sergeant Sanborn(Anthony Mackie) and Specialist Owen Eldridge(Brian Geraghty). Even though James is the best for disarming, but often he disregards team work and process. That becomes a reason for trouble with James and other teammates. The battlefield is the nearest place to the gate of the hell. A tension, a fear, an abhorrence, an anger, and pain mixed together in there. However, they overcome everything by one thing-a desire of surviving. There is no winner in this movie. There are only victims here.
You can see this movie with two perspectives. One of them is Americanized perspective, another one is non-Americanized perspective. If you are in the U.S side, this movie touches your heart because of the U.S solder`s noble sacrifice. They put up with everything even death for their duty and patriotism. The movie shows us real battle over heroism. You can see what solders see, you can feel as solders feel, and you would think as solders think after finishing this movie. The director Kathryn Bigelow delivers Baghdad`s graphicness and reality camera movement (almost whole movie scene is shaking.) It seems like I am in the battlefield. This camera movement makes us feel same anxiety and tension.
That shaking stops when James comes back to his home in the last part of the movie. He goes to the grocery store with his wife and son and his wife asks him to pick some cereal. An electronic noise from the store`s fluorescent lights are needling James, displayed cereals overawe him. He always finds right way very quickly for disarming explosives, but when he comes back to ordinary life, he can`t even pick cereal quickly. In this scene, a fixed screen seems to choke James`s neck (and ours, too.) So, we can sympathize with the U.S solder`s difficulty and focus on their fighting and sacrifice. It`s a crafty tricky for blurring perspective about the Iraq war. We can`t focus on why they are fighting and dying there. Nobody focuses on “Why?”
If you have a non-Americanized perspective, this movie is worse than the worst. Of course, I don`t agree with any terrorism. It`s really worse than any other crimes. Any justice, any religious belief can`t justify terrorism. I wish this movie had a balanced perspective with the Iraq war, but it isolated to the Stars and Stripes. The movie avoids why Iraqis became the terrorists. Let`s political, religious, or economic reasons about the war. Only one thing that we always have to focus on is an ethical balance. A huge number of civilians are still dying under the name of justice there. Not only the U.S solders, but countless Iraqis are victims of the war. I wish people had a balanced perspective during watching this movie. We should remember. Every side has own justice
