“In the Valley of Elah": "Iraq has damaged this country in ways we have only begun to grasp."

[DeepModem Mom]

NYT: Movie Review
In the Valley of Elah (2007)
By A. O. SCOTT
Published: September 14, 2007

....an air of irresolution nonetheless lingers around it, a sorrowful, frustrated sense that the deepest mysteries cannot be contained within any narrative framework. Underneath its deceptively quiet surface is a raw, angry, earnest attempt to grasp the moral consequences of the war in Iraq, and to stare without blinking into the chasm that divides those who are fighting it from their families, their fellow citizens and one another.

This is not to say that the detective story, suggested by the actual murder of Specialist Richard Davis in 2003, is entirely beside the point. Rather, the mechanics of the plot — the forensic discoveries, the squabbles over jurisdiction between military and civilian authority, the rounds of paperwork and the squad-room arguments — serve as the scaffolding for a more unsettling, open-ended inquiry. Much as Hank wants to know what happened to (his son) Mike the night he died, his real quest is to find out who his son was, and what happened to him in Iraq....

***

Not that the message of “In the Valley of Elah” is ambiguous or unclear. The message is that the war in Iraq has damaged this country in ways we have only begun to grasp. For some people this will seem like old news. Others — in particular those who pretend that railing against movies they haven’t seen is a form of rational political discourse — may persuade themselves that it is provocative or controversial....

***

Almost no violence takes place on screen, but there are times when “In the Valley of Elah” feels almost like a horror film. Its steady crescendo of suspense builds toward the revelation — and vanquishing — of some unspeakable, monstrous evil.

But since the monster has no identifiable physical shape, it is not so easily defeated. While there are killers, liars and sadists to be found in this movie, there are not really any villains. And there is no reassuring conclusion. If it is anguished, even despairing, “In the Valley of Elah” is also compassionate. At heart it is a somber ballad about young men who remain lost in a dangerous, confusing place even after they come home.

http://movies.nytimes.com/2007/09/14/movies/14elah.html

[babylonsister]

1. I hope I get to see this this weekend. It sounds great, and I'm not a big

Tommy Lee Jones fan. But it looks good. Really good.