Restrepo (Creative Commons)

Events in Afghanistan are printed in news articles every day, but it’s almost as if the American public has become numb to the country, its casualties and the word itself.

“At what point does the number of sufferers become too large for our minds to process?” said Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Nicholas Kristof in “Reporter.”

Although Kristof was referring to the issues in the Democratic Republic of the Congo at the time, his comment rings true to most developing countries and the tragedies they face, Afghanistan included.

“Restrepo” pulls you out of your apathy and thrusts you into something akin to despair. Perhaps it’s better to remain apathetic, because with despair comes a sense of hopelessness that you just don’t know what to do with.

The documentary follows a group of soldiers deployed on a 15-month mission to Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley, considered “the deadliest place on earth.” The mountain terrain looks wild and beautiful, if not for all the casualties of the war. Bullets whizz past them on a daily basis, and they aim their guns into a hostile abyss. A soldier says that the end of the road is Korengal Valley, and “where the road ends, the Taliban begins.”

“Restrepo” is named after Juan Restrepo, a young medic who was killed in battle. The outpost where they spend most days in between the missions is named after him.

Embedded journalist Sebastian Junger and photographer Tim Hetherington created “Restrepo” with the intention of showing the action from a soldier’s point of view, without any agendas to cloud their vision.

Even though all of the footage is shot shakily, it’s probably the best and closest you’ll ever get to the war without actually setting foot on the land. You’ll be drawn into the chaotic experiences these men go through. Soldiers are shot at left and right, not knowing where the shots come from. At one point they’re ambushed and you see one man sobbing for his friend who just died. At the same time, he doesn’t have a chance to fully mourn because they have to move on.

What’s touching about it all is that there’s no sentimentality involved. The connection between these soldiers is there, plain and simple, and you see how deep the bond goes and how protective they are of each other and the U.S. There’s no sap and there doesn’t need to be. “Restrepo” shows you why soldiers come back and why they want to get deployed over and over again.

“It’s not adrenaline like ‘The Hurt Locker’ would have you believe. It’s brotherhood, and a sense of identity, a sense of being necessary, and a sense of loyalty and commitment by other people to you and vice versa. It’s intoxicating,” said Junger.

The documentary shows you the senselessness of it all. The soldiers build an outpost, name it after a fallen medic, a few people die, and in the end, what was it all for? I still don’t know. More than the troops who died, countless Afghan civilians also died, but these civilians are brushed aside. The soldiers seemed very black and white about American issues in that the U.S. was good and the Taliban were evil, but nothing is ever as simple as that.

Nevertheless, “Restrepo” is something you definitely have to see. It’s an important piece of filmmaking that puts the war into perspective and raises many questions that albeit go unanswered and will make you at least feel something inside that may not have been there before.

To reach staff reporter Roselle Chen, click here.