Written and directed by Iraq War veteran Ray Mendoza and Alex Garland (Civil War, 28 Days Later), Warfare embeds audiences with a platoon of American Navy SEALs on a surveillance mission gone wrong in insurgent territory. A visceral, boots-on-the-ground story of modern warfare and brotherhood, told like never before: in real time and based on the memory of the people who lived it.
The Garden Cinema View:
‘Everything is based on memory’, reads the opening title card of Warfare. This is then a sensory and emotional memory play where, divorced of wider context, we spend a night and a day with a platoon of Navy SEALs in Iraq. Amongst the breathless and overwhelming maelstrom of battle are extended moments of silence and waiting, both tense and tedious. The minutiae of combat logistics undercuts the ‘thrills’ of the fight, as the soldiers’ continual reiteration of equipment locations, radio comms, and the grim first aid treatment of the wounded leaves little time for heroism or disintegration.
What are the stakes of this simulation of intensity? The lack of context allows this short episode to represent larger questions behind modern warfare. These troops swiftly infiltrate, uneasily occupy, and painfully extract from the location, leaving behind nothing of value. Highly efficient in their ultimate inefficiency, there is ultimately a moral encounter for the audience watching these very young looking characters grind through the military machine.
