Posts Tagged ‘The Hurt Locker’
The Hurt Locker ****½
The Hurt Locker is apparently military slang for the contemporary phenomenal equivalent of shell shock (physical trauma associated with repeated aural exposure to explosions), the locker itself being that envelope of time where the force moving through air affords a compressed silence to precede obscene rupture. A fitting title for one of the greatest films set at war – an easy peer to Full Metal Jacket and The Thin Red Line. It describes the experiences of a bomb-disposal unit in Baghdad, approaching the end of their current deployment; its world represents the middle stages of American deployment in Iraq.
As a war film in both form and substance, it has an exclusively masculine superficial appeal, but as a study of masculinity – of war and trauma (of division) – it is of transgender concern. To suggest that it is less interesting for women is both to assign gender and to claim women are insubstantial and superficial – while it may have more appeal to the baser instincts of male audiences (much as the certain chick flicks appeal to those of female audiences) it has substance that goes beyond genre target markets.
News of the week
(500) Days of Summer
Widely celebrated in the US (ovations at Sundance; an opening weekend netting over 24 times its budget), this emocore indie monolith will soon reach these shores. I actually quite look forward to it – it has a guilty appeal, and for all its affected eccentricity (come on, just look at the title), derivativeness and nauseating too-cool-for-schoolery, it looks to be incredibly well written. Reviews so far have been mixed: see here and there.
