In The Valley of Elah

I'd forgotten I'd watched this on the plane over here, which I suppose is not a good start for a film review. As it is, the film isn't entirely forgettable and it raises interesting questions, as much about modern technology as about the war in Iraq.

Whilst Tommy Lee Jones is good in this - so good the Oscar committee decided to nominate him - I think he's better in No Country For Old Men. There isn't much to this film for him to get sunk into. His character - Hank - is rather undemonstrative, a quietly honorable, quietly religious man who wants to honour his son's memory by discovering the truth behind his death. That it turns out to have nothing to do with the war in Iraq and far more with the type of people that go into the army somewhat tarnishes the success of the film. Perhaps the director Paul Haggis was trying to draw a line of connection between the violent stabbing of Hank's son with the desensitising nature of combat in Iraq, but it either wasn't shown forcefully enough or it wasn't there in the first place.

There have been a lot of films about the Iraq conflict over the last year or so, and whenever a new one comes out people (including, obviously, myself) feel the need to mention this fact. Perhaps that is because these films don't work on their own, don't stand alone but work as part of a tapestry of responses to the war. I suppose they are films whose authorial opinions are still being formed: I find my thoughts about the war changing weekly if not daily and I imagine Paul Haggis and his fellow directors and actors find the same. It's not an easily quantifiable war, especially as it's still ongoing and doesn't look like nearing a resolution. I imagine that when it's all over - if it ever is - we'll look back at this collection of films and find things in all of them. It's just a shame we have to wait until their true merit can be deduced.