I don’t know what I expected from this movie- I thought I knew but didn’t. Sure we can expect violence and death; after all, it is called Lone Survivor.
I did not read the book but have spoken with several people who did-apparently everything is based on actual events.
It’s been a few weeks since we went to see this movie but I decided to write about it because of the 2 portrayals that I continue to think about all these weeks later.
The first is about rules of engagement.
Most of us know what that phrase means, intellectually.
While the movie was filmed in New Mexico, the cinematography -to the uninitiated like me, transports the willing viewer to the spectacularly harsh mountains of Afghanistan, immediately conveying the tension of these 4 men. The waiting, the awful isolation and then the tinkle of a goat…
Suddenly, I was there, sympathizing with the diverging points of view expressed by each of the 3 men while the Lieutenant simply listened to the passionate discussion of options and their consequences…no longer an intellectual exercise but conveying what felt eerily like reality.
But it was the ending that seemingly came out of nowhere.
And like most movies that I really like and ponder for days or weeks after, I was reminded of the dangers of assumptions, of thinking we know people, their thoughts, their motives, their humanity- or the lack of it- because of religion, or ethnicity or country of origin.
I found the movie horrifying, heartbreaking and humbling and yet filled with hope because it demonstrates the reality of men of good will -that they do exist and the lengths they will go to to preserve what is more important than their very lives.
