Iraq close combat
This video has a quality to it that’s remarkable. A group of young soldiers alternate between trying to flush out some insurgents from a building and pounding it with heavy fire. Eventually they hit it with a barrage, go back in and find the corpses. It’s the mixture of palpable terror and the weird spacial relationship between them and the insurgents, that makes the video so extraordinary. There’s only a few feet between the spot where they’re being shot at and flee for their lives, screaming, to the place where they feel safe enough to let their weapons drop and curse in frustration. As if it’s a game or a hunt. Their dialogue is also amazing- there’s a rawness to it that says everything about their youth and the pressure they’re under.
June 24th, 2009 at 11:50 pm
Another detail:
When the barrage starts, a small cat or dog is running across frame (left to right), panicking, and a soldier yells out ‘More to the left!’ and the animal is struck by a bullet and slowed, and the camera immediately pans up to lose the animal, which is later seen, presumably dead, as a white streak at the bottom of the frame.
June 25th, 2009 at 7:13 am
I guess they’re not Buddhists…
July 6th, 2009 at 12:08 pm
[...] enjoying his Immersion blog. Of late he’s had a humorous take on Ekman’s emotional faces, an intense video of close combat in Iraq, and babies as challenging both science and [...]