Brian De Palma`s REDACTED

[crippled_avenger]

Redacted
Dan Fainaru in Venice

01 Sep 2007 00:01

 

Dir: Brian De Palma, US, 2007. 90mins
Designed to resemble an American's soldier video blog from Iraq , with additional footage from a French-language pseudo-documentary, YouTube clips and reports from local TV crews, Brian de Palma's attempt to reveal some of the expurgated truth behind the media coverage of the war in Iraq ultimately backfires on him. The evidence of a well-honed professional sensibility behind the camera is too obvious to make the such a fiction actually believable.

Redacted ( which has the same sense as 'edited') is, as it turns out, is a quite traditional and thoroughly well-intentioned anti-war movie. On the one hand it deals with a topical subject matter in a way that will be applauded by many – but on the other hand no new aspects or relevant facts about this war are actually exposed or developed here. However any predictions about its commercial future are bound to be unreliable.

Festivals will certainly find Redacted a worthy addition to their programs; beyond that however, the film risks falling in-between categories, not quite an art film nor really a mass entertainment item. Magnolia Pictures are banking on a wider appeal to a European audience rather than a US one, and it will be part of a slew of Iraq-themed films emerging from the US this Fall.

Landing up with a freshly recruited platoon preparing for action at their American base, de Palma introduces each one of its members in an orderly fashion. There is Salazar (Izzy Diaz), the eager, wide-eyed innocent who dreams of becoming a filmmaker and whose prying camcorder records everything for posterity. Then there is the representative of good old American stock, Lawyer McCoy (Rob Devaney), as law-abiding as his name would suggest.

Bespectacled Blix (Kel O'Neill) always has his nose always in books and bullish redneck Rush (Daniel Stewart Sherman) is in for a good time. Flake (Patrick Carroll) is an out-and-out psychopath, the first one to shoot and kill when the moment comes (he later complains it has not given him the rush he anticipated). Their presence in Iraq proceeds by the book as well, with scenes of heavily armoured vehicles facing kids kicking a ball around. Everyday routines at checkpoints are invasive and degrading.

An attempt by an Iraqi car to break through the barriers ends with US soldiers opening fire and killing a pregnant woman being rushed to the hospital. And then back again to the stagnant observation points under a frying sun, waiting for something to happen. As it certainly will, as the inter-cuts of a hand playing with a Zippo lighter, another hand twisting around a live bullet, or a swarm of ants jumping a scorpion, clearly insinuate.The turning point is Sweet's death, which seems to unleash the beast in Rush and Flake.

From there on, it is only a matter of time before the tragedy erupts, as it does, followed by swift local retaliation and by an investigation committee whose unwillingness to unveil any incriminating evidence against the suspects. The most shocking images of the entire film come at the very end, in an epilogue consisting of actual stills from the war, far more disturbing than anything shown in the preceding fiction.

Intended as a laudably fierce indictment of American presence in yet another part of the world where no one seems to want them, de Palma's script evolves around a first page story that has already resonated around the world. GIs broke into a private home in Samarra, raped, shot to death and set on fire a 14 year-old girl and then proceeded to kill the rest of the family as well.

To De Palma's credit, the opening titles states clearly that his film is purely fictional and any relation to the event itself (or the characters who took part in it) is coincidental and unintentional. If anything, his film is not supposed to deal with the act itself, but to reveal the stories behind the story; all the irrelevant or unmentionable details intentionally or negligently cut out (or as the film's title defines it, redacted) from the general picture the international media presents to the world.

These particular American soldiers haven't a clue about what they are supposed to be doing in Iraq; some even suspect it's their government's way of getting rid of them. If de Palma's assumption is that this kind of questioning attitude may help stop the war, then all the more strength to him. He felt the same about Vietnam, which he dramatised in Casualties of War in 1989.

There is nothing terribly innovative about Redactive, either in form or in content. Making fiction look like documentary is an old ploy, the only difference being that grainy 16 mm has been now replaced by the improved quality the digital footage. And whatever is left of the pretence that this is anything less than fiction disintegrates, once de Palma's characters embark on Off-Broadway type dialogs. As for the Handel and Puccini excerpts on the soundtrack, they are all a bit overused by now. But what de Palma offers is, in essence, a careful, generally well-constructed reconstruction of a vile massacre, the blame laid on disturbed minds and recalcitrant boors, who terrorize or intimidate their fellow soldiers into silence.

Well shot (in HD) and expertly edited, no shaky camera or hesitant cuts here, blog or no blog, de Palma's film, using a practically anonymous cast which delivers its lines with stagy conviction, makes its point beyond any doubt.

Production companies
HDNet Films
The Film Farm

International sales
Magnolia Pictures
(1) 212-924-6701

Executive producers
Laird Adamson
Gretchen McGowan

Producers
Mark Cuban
Jason Kliot
Simone Urdl
Jennifer Weiss
Joanna Vincente
Todd Wagner

Screenplay
Brian de Palma

Cinematography
Jonathon Cliff

Editor
Bill Pankow

Production design
Philip Barker

Main cast
Patrick Carroll
Izzy Diaz
Rob Devaney
Kel O'Neill
Daniel Stewart Sherman
Mike Figueroa
Ty Jones

[Meho Krljic]

Pa, dobro, meni bi se to verovatno dopalo.

[crippled_avenger]

Redacted
(Canada-U.S.)
By DEREK ELLEYA Magnolia Pictures release (in U.S.) of an HDNet Films presentation of a The Film Farm production. (International sales: HDNet, New York.) Produced by Jennifer Weiss, Simone Urdl, Jason Kliot, Joana Vicente. Executive producers, Todd Wagner, Mark Cuban. Directed, written by Brian De Palma.

With: Patrick Carroll, Rob Devaney, Izzy Diaz, Mike Figueroa, Ty Jones, Kel O'Neill, Daniel Stewart Sherman, Bridget Barkan, Zahra Kareem Alzubaidi.
(English, Arabic, French dialogue)

The bullet veers far off the mark in Brian De Palma's "Redacted." Deeply felt but dramatically unconvincing "fictional documentary" -- inspired by the March 2006 rape and killings by U.S. troops in Mahmoudiya, south of Baghdad -- has almost nothing new to say about the Iraq situation and can't make up its mind about how to package its anger in an alternative cinematic form. HD-lensed item, largely using thesps with legit experience, feels more like a filmed Off Broadway play than a docudrama, and has trouble establishing a consistent dramatic tone. Curio biz looks likeliest for this Magnolia release Stateside.
From its title and intriguing opening (which shows words blacked out on a document by a censor's pen), the film seems determined to explore the repackaging of actual events by official and corporate media. In fact, it does nothing of the kind. From the first sequence, of Latino grunt Angel Salazar (Izzy Diaz) recording his buddies on video camera for a docu ("Tell Me No Lies") he hopes will get him into film school, "Redacted" is much more about the process and techniques of filmmaking than media distortion or coverups.

The breezy Salazar's fellow soldiers in Alfa Company, Camp Carolina, Samarra, fall into the usual stereotypes: bookish Gabe Blix (Kel O'Neill), who spends his time reading John O'Hara's "Appointment in Samarra"; soldier-with-a-conscience McCoy, a lawyer (Rob Devaney); and racist tree-swingers B.B. Rush (Daniel Stewart Sherman) and Reno Flake (Patrick Carroll). Their leader, Master Sgt. James Sweet (Ty Jones), is a motormouth hardass on his third tour of duty.

It's soon clear De Palma intends to construct the whole movie from "found footage" -- Salazar's vid diary, security camera tapes, an Arab TV channel, websites (both U.S. and Islamic fundamentalist) or other docus and testimonials.

After Salazar's opening, the first of these sources to show the outfit going about its daily routine at a checkpoint is a (fake) French docu, "Barrage." Complete with Baroque music, finely shot closeups and a metaphysical commentary -- as different from Salazar's raw, emotional footage as possible -- it's unclear whether De Palma is parodying Gallic documentary style for its artiness or praising it for its detachment. Whichever is true, pic's technique is already starting to deflect attention from any potential message.

Drama finally clicks into gear when a car driven by Iraqis doesn't stop at the checkpoint, and Flake and Rush open fire. Even when it turns out the car contains a pregnant woman rushing to get to a hospital (where she subsequently dies), the two soldiers remain unrepentant. In dialogue that sounds too theatrically scripted, Rush contends, "You can't afford remorse. You get remorse, you get weak; you get weak, you die."Violence escalates when the locals take revenge on one of the group, in a well-staged shock sequence. After a night raid on a private house, seen from the p.o.v. of an embedded journalist, and the subsequent media hoo-ha, Flake and Rush pressure the rest of their group to return on a private mission. Secretly helmet-cammed by Salazar, this ends in the horrific rape of a 15-year-girl and the shooting of her and her family.

Shot in half-shadow amid general hysteria, this sequence does have a raw power, but its impact is diluted by the pic's increasingly wobbly tone and the characters' lack of depth. Dialogue simply checks off issues rather than developing arguments, and there isn't the faintest trace of any moral or ethical complexity visible onscreen.

De Palma the technician and film buff too often gets in the way of De Palma the filmmaker with a cause. And there's little here that he didn't already say in "Casualties of War," with which "Redacted" shares several character and story parallels.

Ironically, pic's most powerful section is its final 10 minutes, as McCoy's traumatic experience is reduced, back home, to a bar yarn that ends with friends cheering him as a hero. De Palma follows that with a photo montage of real-life Iraqi victims of violence, dubbed "Collateral Damage" -- a harrowing couple of minutes that seems, alas, to be a coda to a better picture than "Redacted."

Performances are of a piece with the material, with a slightly overplayed quality that's more suitable to legit than docudrama. Locations in Amman, Jordan, do reasonable service for Iraq. Rest of technical package is high-quality HD level.

Camera (color, HD), Jonathon Cliff; editor, Bill Pankow; production designer, Phillip Barker; art director, Michael Diner; costume designer, Jamla Aladdin; sound (Dolby Digital), John Thomson; sound designer, Paul Fairfield; special effects, David Harris; special makeup effects, Adrien Morot; assistant director, John Tyson; second unit director, Eric Schwab. Reviewed at Venice Film Festival (competing), Aug. 30, 2007. (Also in Toronto Film Festival -- Special Presentations.) Running time: 91 MIN.

[crippled_avenger]

Pa, dobro, meni bi se to verovatno dopalo.

Ja koliko znam ti više voliš kad devojku spale pre silovanja a ne posle...

[Meho Krljic]

Actually... no comment.

Više sam mislio da bi mi se dopao taj snažni antiratni sentiment i mok-dok pristup iako obe kritike koje si okačio vele da sve to nije baš uverljivo i da se malo spopliće... Al ja sam prost čovek...

[Ghoul]

taj de palma, ne znam dal je gori kad je ozbiljan ili kad se zeza.

[crippled_avenger]

De Palma's Redacted won't get Bubble-style release
Geoffrey Macnab in Venice
31 Aug 2007 17:59

 

HDNet Films, which pioneered day and date multi-platform releasing with Steven Soderbergh's Bubble, has decided to give Brian De Palma's controversial new digital feature Redacted a more traditional release.

The film, produced for HDNet Films, received its world premiere in Venice this week. It tells of the rape and murder of a young Iraqi woman by American soldiers in Iraq in 2006.The story is based on a real-life incident but is told in a fictional form.

Given its topicality and the fact De Palma based his screenplay on material he sourced entirely on the web, the movie would appear a prime candidate for an alternative "viral" release strategy. However, this time, the producers have decided to go down a more conventional route.

"There are a lot of issues involved," producer Jason Kliot commented of sister company Magnolia's plans to give Redacted a platform release.

When Steven Soderbergh's Bubble was released via HDNet "day and date" two years ago, several exhibitors boycotted the film because of its simultaneous release on other platforms.

"We are still trying different forms of alternative distribution, but on this film, we felt we didn't want to hamper its potential," Kliot said.

Magnolia will be giving the film, which was made for under $5m and shot in Jordan, a traditional platform release in the early autumn and then to try to build the audience up as debate around the movie grows.

Acknowledging that De Palma would "love" an internet relese, Kliot said that "the problem with internet distribution is that it is just not quantified yet." He added that distributors were nervous about "jumping into something that will diminish the value of the film as a film."

Speaking at the festival today, De Palma talked of his desire to get the movie in front of a mass audience. "It is an attempt to bring the reality of what is happening in Iraq in front of the American people."

During the Vietnam war, De Palma pointed out, the "images of destruction and of sorrow of the people we'd been traumatised and killing" were readily available in the mainstream media. "But we see none of that in this (Iraq) war."

De Palma faced fearsome legal challenges in making the movie. "The difficulty of making this film was walking through the minefield of the legalities," he said.

"Everything that was in the movie was based on something I found that actually happened and that was reported on the internet, but once I put it in the script, I'd get a note from the lawyers saying 'no, you can't use that - it is real and we may get sued.'"

Meanwhile, Kliot confirmed that Soderbergh's new digital film, The Girlfriend Experience, will shoot next February with non-professional actors.

[Tex Murphy]

Zar ne bi trebalo u filmu da se uvede neko pravilo kao u sportu - npr. kad napraviš neki žešći prestup, da te suspenduju na neko vrijeme. Neko ko je snimio Crnu Daliju zaslužuje bar trogodišnju zabranu bavljenja filmom. Odnosno, ako prije toga snimite Misiju na Mars, onda deset godina.

S druge strane, De Palma je ipak čovjek koji u svojim filmovima redovno prikazuje grudi (nečast izuzecima kao što je Raising Cain), tako da mu je to olakotna okolnost što rekla braća Rvati (a isti se nešto rijetko pojavljuju u posljednje vrijeme. Zosko i Izitpajne, gdje ste do đavola?).

[lenny]

Pojavio se screener!

http://www.newtorrents.info/torrent/31220/Redacted.LiMiTED.REPACK.DVDSCR.XViD-ALLiANCE.html


Cak su se i na comentsima likovi ozbiljno zapalili i pokacili.

[Джон Рейнольдс]

Dobra ti je ideja, Harvi, ali onda više ne bi mogao da uživaš u zlodelima Pola WajdSkrin Andersona. Taj bi popio doživotnu zabranu, a ne da snima tamo kojekakve Spaj hantere, Pakmene i njima slične.

[Ghoul]

'Redacted' To Confront Protests

Director Brian De Palma's latest film Redacted is scheduled to open tomorrow (Friday) in limited release as theater owners brace for possible protests. The film, inspired by the case of the rape and murder of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl by U.S. soldiers, has been condemned by Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly, who called on his audience to bring signs to theaters reading "Support Our Troops" and predicted that the movie "will incite anti-American hatred around the world." He also called the film's executive producer, Mark Cuban, an "anti-American" and encouraged fans of the Dallas Mavericks, which Cuban owns, to protest against the film at the team's games. O'Reilly described De Palma as "a true villain in our country." In response to such verbal assaults, the director told the Canadian Press, "I have been needlessly attacked in the press and the blogs as a left-wing wacko who should be horse-whipped, and how can I say anything terrible about what's going on in relation to the troops? ... I just state what I feel very strongly, and I don't have to be loved. ... I'm not running for office." In a separate interview with Philadelphia City Paper, De Palma accused the media of soft-pedaling the Iraq war, whereas during the Vietnam War, "we saw the images. We saw our casualties, we saw their casualties. That's what got us out into the streets, and that's what got us out of the war." At the end of Redacted, he shows a montage of victims of the Iraq War as well, although their faces have been digitally obscured, reportedly on orders from Cuban. Nevertheless, De Palma observed, the original photographs appear all over the Internet "and yet none of these images has ever gotten into the mainstream media. ... How does that happen?"


i posle nek neko priča o slobinom diktatorskom rts-u, i medijima slobodnog (zapadnog) sveta!!!
pa ovaj fox je ZLO!      

[Tex Murphy]

Heh, I second that, a osim toga ovo zvuči zanimljivo i možda je matori jarac uspio da izvuče ono najbolje iz sebe (mada su mu ipak najbolji filmovi sa razdvojenim ličnostima i dosta seksa).

[---]

ja kad sam bio ono kod okupatora, najviše sam bio zgrožen televizijom u generalu, ali FOX - pa to, što reko dino dervišhalidović, ni pas s maslom ne bi pojeo.

i ja sam konzerva tivan, ali ONO... sa sve citatima iz Biblije na početku glupih tok šouova i rekonstrukcijama veza između nastavnice i trinaestogodišnjeg učenika, uz moralistički komentar...