DN:FILM Combat Obscura
The opening tile card of Miles Lagoze’s COMBAT OBSCURA reads “We filmed what they wanted, but then we kept shooting.” What they, the Marine Corps, wanted from Lagoze, a combat videographer, was footage for use in recruitment videos, coverage of battle scenes to feed the networks, and documentation of the war in Afghanistan from 2011 – 2012. What Lagoze kept shooting he brought home and, while attending film school, edited and assembled into an hour-long compilation of how life for young battalion Marines unfolds during war.
The film is jarring, vexing and often difficult to watch. Views captured from body, helmet and handheld cameras show what it’s like to be in battle, on patrol and horsing around with fellow unit members as troops experience wartime life in rural Afghanistan. Some of the shaky footage is exactly the kind that in contemporary cinematic language means chaos; the camera grabs hurtling images while the soldiers scurry around their terrain. Nothing is off limits to Lagoze’s camera: the profane and dignified; the drugs—young men coming down from adrenaline highs by lighting up with the excellent local hash—the things said and done under massive stress; and scenes of death. Lagoze doesn’t sermonize or identify an obvious political position, but his film makes clear the impact an unending war has on both the local population and on the young men expected to shoulder the burden of fighting it while striving for hard-to-define success in situations where mistakes are common and easy wins are hard to come by.
Available to stream and in select theaters on March 15.