Camp Armadillo

This is how I imagine a documentary that goes to the core and can convey the reality of war in a distant country to its viewers without any manipulative practices, in a way that even a person without deeper knowledge of the context and history of the Afghan conflict can still navigate themselves well in the position of a European soldier who is meant to correct the mistakes of two superpowers over the past 20 years. It is only here that one realizes how absurd the idea of resolving such a conflict by force is. It is a clash of two completely different civilizations and a conflict that has no end. In suppressing guerrilla warfare, heavy weapons and state-of-the-art equipment often prove to be useless. Tanks and cars destroy the fields of farmers whose interests the soldiers are supposed to defend. Similarly, any military actions have consequences for the civilian population, who usually prefer local fighters, whom they understand in terms of language and culture, over foreign invaders. The documentary portrays Danish soldiers as normal men with thinking that corresponds to their age and life experience. They want to experience some adventure, crave action, have normal human fears, and exhibit ordinary emotions. Armadillo is valuable precisely because it does not pretend to be anything it is not, and if anything is shocking, it is rather the hysterical reaction of the media and the public to the soldiers' behavior in the documentary. To me, the behavior of the soldiers in those situations seems absolutely logical, and it is rather sound judgment that is lacking on the opposite side. Overall impression: 95%. (2012-09-13)

An attentive probe into the routine of a Danish crew in Afghanistan. Director Janus Metz uses a modern form, looks into the intimacy of his protagonists, listens to their dialogues, reconstructs motivations and adds superbly edited footage of combat deployment as the icing on the cake. Metz is not looking for context, but rather ordinariness, war through the eyes of an individual (this is similar to Maoz's film). Thanks to its excellent technical design, Armadillo is a modern and uncompromising documentary. (2010-07-12)