What are the best movies on counterinsurgency? I just wondered. For a list of recommended readings on counterinsurgency. And some recommended viewings would be a nice addition.
I’m really no film buff, so these came to mind, with some help from Andrew Exum:
- Waltz with Bashir (2008)
- The Wind that Shakes the Barley (2006)
- Red Dawn (1984)
- Go Tell The Spartans (1978)
- And of course Pontecorvo’s must-see classic, La battaglia di Algeri (1966).
So what are we missing? A top-ten list would be great. Perhaps a new film? (Avatar doesn’t count.) A classic? Any advice on great movies about small wars from our readership would be very much appreciated.
Speaking of which: for those who are in Berlin, some of us (David Ucko and myself) will again watch The Battle of Algiers tomorrow, Wednesday, at 8pm, in the Z-Bar, a relaxed cinema-cum-bar in Mitte. You’re welcome to join our small group of German security wonks.
And a particularly outstanding favorite:
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It’s very vexing for me, The Battle for Algiers isn’t appreciated in the U.S. I’ve tried to get my club to show it at college but in the words of my professor “It’s black and white, it’s subtitled, and it’s old”. To be honest I can’t think of many other decent ones, too many of the recent ones are made for an American audience (and therefore from the view of the soldiers) and too many of the old ones were made to show how just and wonderful the new government was.
… in the words of my professor “It’s black and white, it’s subtitled, and it’s old”.
That was your professor? Grant, you need to find a new college. The one where you are appears to lack a fairly requisite sense of perspective.
Total spoiler of a clip but Breaker Morant gets my vote.
Other mentionable films are:
Salvador: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5e3na-7QZtA&feature=related
Che: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqTw2dtVQzw
Soldier of Orange: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hCjgrXJSlA
The Quiet American (poor adaptation of a great book but still, the story is timeless) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrQM2tNd9vM
And the lastly, real story of the Soviet-Afghan war: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQjlCRMiX3U
Cromwell
Michael Collins
Street Fight (not really armed conflict, but interesting to consider)
I just got Waltz with Bashir in the mail yesterday via Netflix. I didn’t realize it fit this genre. Lucky me.
Have to agree on the quality of “Battle of Algiers”, and with Jack’s pick of “Soldier of Orange”.
Let’s not forget “Lawrence of Arabia”
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056172/
On the other hand, I think “Red Dawn” is more entertaining than instructional, so instead, I’ll nominate “Defiance”
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1034303
In addition to the above (sorry, more than 10):
84C MoPic
The Brotherhood of War
Lawrence of Arabia
Iluminados por el fuego (Enlightened by Fire) (Falklands War)
Paradise Now
Little Big Man
Zulu
No Man’s Land
Lion of the Desert
Jarhead
Heartbreak Ridge
Lebanon
The Wild Geese
The Wild Bunch
Blackhawk Down
The Beast
Full Metal Jacket
Talvisota
The Hurt Locker
@Mark Pyruz,
That is a rather authoritative list, I must say. However, you did leave out Breaker Morant (a little surprised actually). Also, the greatest of all small war propaganda films, The Green Berets. However, I am totally impressed by not only the inclusion of 84C MoPic, but that you thought of it first. Its one of my favs. I thought of Lawrence too, but dismissed it because its largely about WW-I – thus not a “small war” flick (though many lessons most certainly apply).
Pierre Schoendoerffer’s, La 317eme Section:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dx8u1auZe2M
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_317th_Platoon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Schoendoerffer
But $250 for a VHS on Amazon? Putain de merde! Re-release it on dvd already!
How could you forget Lost Command, the screen adaptation of Jean Larteguy’s book The Centurions? The book was by far the better version, but either way it’s got the French in both Indochina and Algeria. A must for the top ten list.
Oh, and then there’s this other little film, you may have heard of it, called Apocalypse something or other…
I’m Spartacus!
Thank you for citing Go Tell the Spartans. I wrote the story on which Wendell Mayes based his filmscript.
As for other small wars films, here are two about the Irish war of independence: Ryan’s Daughter, loosely based on the failed attempt to land German guns off the freighter Aud; and Michael Collins, a fairly decent account of the man who arguably invented 20th century terrorism as a political weapon. Blue skies! — Dan Ford
“The Wind That Shakes the Barely” is a terrible film. It superimposes the views of its director on the Iraq War onto the Irish War of Independence and propounds a ludicrously ignorant view of the causes of the Civil War.
In spite of Julia Roberts, “Michael Collins” covers much of the same ground in a much less agit-prop and more entertaining way
How about “Bloody Sunday” about the Londonderry march in the early 1970s?
Here’s are some of my favorites:
The Beast of War http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094716/
Breaker Morant http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080310/
Philippines, My Philippines http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/226783/Philippines-My-Philippines/overview
The Odd Angry Shot http://uk.imdb.com/title/tt0079652/
Vietnam (miniseries) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0140770/
The Shadow Circus: The CIA in Tibet http://www.asianamericanmedia.org/shadowcircus/
Charlie Wilson’s War http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0472062/
As I have also stated on other threads, I strongly disagree with any unqualified recommendation of the genre of movies that include such (IMHO) tripe as Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, Apocalypse Now, and to a slightly lesser extent, Jarhead, Generation Kill or most recently, Avatar with its grotesque caricature (of course it is a glorified cartoon) of US Marines.
All the easy ones are gone. I’d like to second Lion of the Desert which is practically impossible to find, however. Baader Meinhof Complex is the most useful recently. I think it says more about insurgency which is relevant to today than any others. Red Dawn I would proclaim ignorance of/scorn for except that I’m too honest, I was 14 and thought it was awesome, and actually notwithstanding its utter naffness its actual pretty good on insurgency. I’d also go for Spartacus which I’ve used in my class to illustrate two quite core principles: one, the importance of grievance and, two, the timeless wisdom if you’re an insurgent of avoiding main force engagement.
Your mention of Spartacus and the core principles triggered a memory of another movie that might be useful is Masada http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081900/
Well, la 317ème section is available on DVD (http://www.amazon.fr/317e-section-Jacques-Perrin/dp/B00004VYHY).
I would add two more films by Pierre SCHOENDORFFER: le crabe tambour and l’honneur d’un capitaine.
Additionally, why not consider “Farewell to the King” with Nick NOLTE, another movie adapted from a novel by Pierre SCHOENDORFFER (“l’adieu au roi”)
Nom de Dieu! Thanks for the heads up, I stand corrected. “Le Crabe Tambour” was published as a novel in English as “The Paths Of The Sea”, for those (as myself) whose French is limited to high school texts and sundry off-colour exclamations. La 317eme Section is also available as a novel, but as far as I know, only in French. The film versions of the afore-mentioned are both excellent, and Willsdorff is a great literary character in the Conrad vein. “Farewell To The King” was pretty good…I’ll certainly check out L’Honneur d’un Capitaine. There’s also Schoendoerffer’s film, “Dien Bien Phu.” Chapeau!
Et voilà!
Dien Bien Phu is not about Small Wars but it is also a great film by P. S. I recommend it!
If only I had known The Battle of Algiers was on in the Z-Bar yesterday! That would have been nice …
Oh well, the DVD arrived a few days ago and I’ve been watching Avatar, finally. And you’re totally right, it doesn’t count – except as a negative example. They were playing by the rules of the “Sky People“ which, according to Arreguin-Toft, is a certain recipe for defeat. It took the animals to save the day.
As for Avatar, notwithstanding it is a high tech cartoon IMHO, I do hope you will suspend belief as to the wholly inaccurate and bizarre (given Cameron’s professed intent to “honor” the US Marines in his depiction and references) caricaturing of that service.
on Kashmir, Jashn-e-Azadi by Sanjay Kak
http://kashmirfilm.wordpress.com/synopsis/
Uh, Cincinnatus, I’m not sure anyone takes the depiction of Marines in Avatar seriously. It’s basically a light show, nothing more, nothing less.
Given your interest in France and French military, I think you should include “l’ennemi intime” (in Germany it was shown as “intimate enemies”). It is not only a recent film on a very interesting war but deals (for a western movie) quite a lot with the algerian side.
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEoPpPNHdWI
Although not a movie, there is a documentary that I also recommend; it’s called “Meeting Resistance” (by Steve Connors and Molly Bingham) and deals with a very small fraction of the Sunni-Arab resistance in a part of Baghdad. Apart from a glimpse into this very war, if you want to address the problem of intelligence in a COIN situation – this is your film. Just try to reconcile all the different statements of the different persons. This in contrast to most movies, where the ambiguity of situational awareness clears up, when the protagonist asks the clever questions, the right people or just with the right amount of torture.
Turan Saheb hit on a great movie, fairly recent in release, that has had miniscule exposure in the English speaking world. “Intimate Enemies” is an excellent compliment to “Battle of Algiers” in that it covers the rural war in Algeria’s bled. It gets a little weird at the end, but c’est la guerre. For Americans, buy the Portuguese Region 1 DVD and watch it with English subtitles.
Also, while not exactly a small war, “Army of Shadows” (another French movie) is a great depiction of the Resistance in France during the German occupation in WW2.
I saw L’Ennemi intime as well a couple of years back when it first came out, and have to say that I was rather disappointed. To give it credit, it did some things well, such as including Algerian veterans of Monte Cassino in the company, and the depictions of equipment and technologies from the period are impressive. My gripe with the film was that it badly handled the issue of torture, and implied that every company had their own torture chamber handy in their outpost. This is patently false, especially in the dates given for the film, 1959-1960, when directives were issued by the high command forbidding torture. I also had the sense that the director tried to make a Vietnam movie in Algeria, rather than a movie about Algeria. It was far more like Platoon than the Battle of Algiers.
The Battle of Algiers is an excellent film, the best on COIN that I’ve seen, at least in my opinion. I would also second the recommendation on the Baader-Meinhof Complex.
Hi Christopher. Pleased to meet you again on the virtual world.
I agree with your assessment about “l’ennemi intime”. It is more a Vietnam movie in Algeria.
Hurt Locker (Here’s hoping it’s Oscar winning and gets the wider audience it deserves)
I have to vigorously disagree with you. “Hurt Locker” is awful and I disagree it portrays us in a positive light. The technical and tactical errors are egregious and a senior NCO behaving like that would have been sacked, plus the O6 was ridiculous. The producer could have script doctorred that thing for under $1000 with someone who had actually been in Iraq or served in Baghdad or operated from Victory Base Complex/Camp Liberty or knew how to employ EOD and produced an amazing movie. This movie was a comic book, our war’s “The Green Berets.”
A two-tour vet of Baghdad (30 months)
Here’s a review of The Hurt Locker by a fellow IZ vet. That review is the reason that I did not watch it.
Wot, no mention of ‘Come and See’? Plenty of anti-Partisan operations there. Bloomin’ good film too.
‘Bloody Sunday’ and ‘Sunday’ both cover the same subject but neither is really that good (and Greengrass’s camera-work makes me sea-sick, which even boats don’t). You can sort of shove them into the COIN box if you want though and its always nice to watch Nesbitt and Eccleston in action. There’s another Norn’ Ireland flick made for C4 about a roadblock/patrol(?) but I’m damned if I can remember the name or indeed the plot. There’s ‘Harry’s Game’ of course. And so on.
‘The Virgin Soldiers’ takes place during Malaya. Peter Watkins ‘Culloden’ finishes with a little 18thC COIN in the Highlands. He also made a film about the Commune 1871 though that’s more rebellion than insurgency. Awful film too, all 400 or so minutes, completely up its own jacksie. ‘The Bridge on the River Kwai’ has a cameo by Force 136. ‘Ill Met By Moonlight’ does the Cretan partisans. The C4 adaptation of Waugh’s ‘Sword of Honour’ has a fair chunk with Tito’s mob, though its generally bland.
Oh and of course, where would we be without ‘Allo Allo’?!
Amazing — your suggestions are outstanding and extremely useful for our purposes. So thank you all.
I’ll put together a (tentative) list of, say, the 25 Greatest Films on Small Wars and posted it in the next days.
I’d like to thank turan saheb for putting Meeting Resistance on his list though at the same time just push back on his comments.
To say that MR covers a “small fraction of the Sunni Arab resistance” would suggest that the film is unrepresentative. Although the people we interviewed in making the documentary are quite small in number – there are eight people in the film who claimed they were involved in the violence – what evidence exists about the constitution of groups carrying out the post-invasion violence leads to the conclusion that the film is highly representative. According to the US Department of Defense statistics, from May of 2003 through to May of 2008 73% of “significant attacks” in Iraq targeted US led coalition forces. 15% targeted Iraqi security forces and 12% were aimed at civilians. Although there is no definition of what kind of attack is deemed significant I have always taken it to mean that it required some organisation, planning and resources. Of course, these figures are not reflected in the resulting casualty figures, for obvious reasons. Further, studies done by the US military of Iraqi’s in custody conclude with similar results that the overwhelming majority of prisoners were nationalists fighting against the occupation of the country.
Finally, the depiction of the resistance as being solely from the Sunni Arab community is another myth. Of the eight people in the film (we interviewed about forty five) three of them were Shi’a though none of those were from JAM. That’s another story.
There are enough myths about “the insurgency” – that name being one of them – and Meeting Resistance only sought to provide a reasonable bedrock of understanding to a general audience.
I suppose I’d be remiss if I didn’t come up with another film for you: Independence Day, especially for the American suicide bomber who saves the world. Of course, a pre-9/11 movie.
Steve
What about Marlon Brando’s 1969 film “Queimada (1969) (or “Burn”)?
Steve Connors,
I had the pleasure of attending a screening of Meeting Resistance at CSIS in, I believe, December 2007. I remember distinctly someone asking to what degree the audience was self-selected. To test this, those in the audience who believed the surge was ‘working’ were asked to raise their hands. Few did, perhaps because the question, if it is to be answered fully, requires more than a hand in the air.
Still, I did raise my hand, not because I thought the security gains of the surge would be strategically decisive but because I thought all other options would have been less successful in stabilising the situation as it presented itself a year earlier.
My point with this recollection is to comment on your own comment above regarding the nature of the insurgency. It seemed to me during the screening and subsequent discussion, that this film, shot in the initial-post invasion phase, became a counterargument to the surge in 2007. But so much had changed between the time the film was shot and then discussed at CSIS.
The argument, for example, that since most attacks were targeting the Coalition, it’s departure would leave behind a more stable situation, would seem difficult to square with the situation in Iraq in late 2006. Incidentally it is the same argument used by the British senior command and government to justify the withdrawal of British troops from Basra in 2007. There and more generally, Coalition forces were certainly being attacked, but the notion that they were the ’cause’ of nationalist-driven violence and that their departure would ipso facto lead to greater stability is deeply suspicious and sounds all-too ‘convenient’ for me.
Also, if we base this supposition on the statistics that you cite, is there not a possibility that U.S. statistics would catch more of the attacks on its own personnel rather than the deluge of every-day attacks affecting Iraqi civilians? It would surprise me if good figures even exist on this. Returning to British troops in Basra, 80% of attacks apparently targeted British forces prior to their withdrawal. But as we now know, and should have known beforehand, their withdrawing only brought down the level of violence against coalition forces, not that affecting the now completely vulnerable population of the city, where violence soared.
I thought that the great value of Meeting Resistance lay in the field work and the first-hand interviews. As a source on the time in Iraq in which it was filmed, it is excellent. But can it really tell us much about the nature of the ‘insurgency’, as if it were a rarefied, unitary or static phenomenon? Can it explain the situation in Iraq years after it was shot? If not, should it be used to push policy?
Just thinking about Christopher’s comment above (about the fidelity of Hurt Locker). There’s a broader point here, isn’t there, about the relationship between war and the art it inspires? Peter Paret devotes much of his recent book about Prussia to discussing art as an expression of how societies imagined/conceived of the wars of their day.
From that perspective, accuracy might not be the only interesting thing about these films. In fact, accuracy is probably unlikely, even in films that trade in it. That’s exasperating for those with first hand experience, keen to share that with folks back home who have no direct understanding of the conflict. But it’s certainly interesting for scholars looking at the relationship between societies and violence – through the prism of the art that violence generates.
I’d like to second what Ken said: Peter Paret’s book is a must-read on the relationship between the arts and war. And on accuracy: it’s like with novels and history books, there are films that want to be accurate, like documentaries, and those that don’t, which is to say most of the movies discussed here. The problem arises if a film pretends to be a documentary, which relates back to David Ucko’s comment above, I guess.
I want to extend my comments regarding The Hurt Locker.
I am a long time student of the relationship of the arts, especially movies, and war. It is a professional responsibility as I see it because society draws so much on how the military operates from movies (hell, we refer to movies even in combat). I don’t dispute that accuracy is difficult, often not entirely useful for storytelling purposes, and I support necessary cinematic license (I immediately overlooked the uniform issues in HL when I saw it while home on R&R leave this past summer—everyone was wearing DCUs in 2004, no one had ACUs). However, Saving Private Ryan changed the dynamic with regard to war movies in terms of presenting a reasonably realistic depiction OR a cartoon like Rambo III as a showcase for the Soviet-Afghan War.
Accuracy and realism are part of the equation in ways they were not prior to 1998. Furthermore, I would have no issue with Hurt Locker except for the repeated mantra about how good it is (its OK as a movie, I don’t think it is award worthy) and the best depiction of the Iraq war, etc. Its a fun movie, but then so was Inglorious Basterds, but it is not even close to realistic and what is shameful is that it could have been made so much better/more accurate (without being boring or pedantic) for pennies on the dollar in Hollywood budget terms.
And I do concur with Red Dawn as a good movie about insurgency and counterinsurgency. Not as a movie showing tactics though.
Thanks David, I remember the CSIS screening well. Many of those in attendance were from the State Department with a high proportion being from AID and with experience in Iraq. The film was not produced to become a counterargument for any particular policy but in 2007 certainly became a basis for discussion on the possibilities and merits of the “surge”. I was not very comfortable with this for a number of reasons, the main one being that the debate within the US tended to exclude the all-important Iraqi perspective, much of which was, anyway, quite opaque.
As you know, there is still much about the events of 2007 that remains contentious at all levels because the reduction in violence that was contemporaneous with the increase in troop levels was related to a number of factors among the various Iraqi factions. The violence of 2006 and 2007 was highly complex and driven by a variety of causes and grievances. Apart from the attacks on US troops (at their highest at the height of the surge in June and July 07) there was of course the civil war. This was usually (and in my opinion wrongly) described as sectarian in nature and was being generated by opposing visions of Iraq’s political future. An unknown but significant amount of the killing was – outside of the “significant attacks” description – being carried out by people simply seeking revenge.
Even where contributory factors are agreed upon there are different interpretations of their cause and their effect. I’m thinking of the “Awakenings” and the Sadr ceasefire. The latter was a truce agreement with Hakim’s ISCI but is understood to have resulted in a precipitous drop in violence against civilians. What does that tell us? The Awakenings story is told as the Anbar tribes turning against ISI/AQI. Well, that’s a part of the story but surely more important than that is their inability to continue fighting on three fronts: against ISI, the Americans and the Iranian influence in the Badr/Peshmerga controlled Interior Ministry. By allowing the tribes to “police” their own districts in return for a cessation of attacks against US forces the Americans effectively switched sides. Moreover, when extended into the capital this removed the rationale behind the seemingly inadvertent US military support for the militia cleansing of Baghdad districts.
To your central point that a withdrawal of coalition forces would not impact stability, I think your view of the violence from 2003 to 2005 fails to fully appreciate the cyclical dynamics of the utilization of counter-insurgency techniques against a violent resistance to occupation. From the beginning of 2004 onwards, whether by using informants in the communities or empowering formerly exiled militia’s to fight on “our side”, the occupying force was driving the country toward inter and intra communal violence and inexorably into civil war. And then, of course, there are the politics.
You said that so much had changed since the film was shot and in some area’s that is true but, fundamentally, what we have really witnessed is an intensification of what was already evident in the first months after the invasion.
Thomas, probably the most gratifying part of our travels with Meeting Resistance – which have included a number of military screenings followed by discussions such as the one at CSIS – has been the response of Iraqi’s and a number of American soldiers and Marines who have served in Iraq. One Marine – an Arabic speaking civil affairs officer who had recently served in Anbar – approached us to say that the film was the only portrayal of events in Iraq that he had seen or read that accurately reflected his own experience.
Steve
Steve,
That question of accuracy is of course an old and complicated one. It involves epistemology but also emotion. Some discussion-boards on military history have a “30-years rule”: you’re not supposed to discuss anything more recent than 30 years, because many tend to be too involved emotionally, first, and we don’t have full access to the sources yet, secondly. What does that mean for the Awakening? On the sources: I talked to many people about it, officers, journalists, academics, just last week to a friend who’s working on that and who’s eloquently conversant in Arabic who came over from al-Anbar province to visit me in Jerusalem. The bottom line is: we just don’t know yet what precisely happend. Even if many people have strong opinions. On emotions: violence is highly emotional. And filmmakers, you know better than me, have the tools to use emotions in their work. So let’s be careful with statements about accuracy. While waiting those 30 years, I recommend Austin Long’s excellent article on the subject.
Thanks Thomas, I like the Thirty Year Rule. Unfortunately public analysis operates on a thirty minute rule and sends policy off in all kinds of wrong directions because baseline assumptions are muddied by all kinds of – yes – emotional baggage that even the most rational of cool headed academics are prone to drag around with them.
There is a value to documentary filmmaking’s capacity to record, heighten and display emotion. This is especially so when the subject is violence or war. Like it or not, wars are driven by emotions at the highest levels. There are few human endeavors as irrational as going to war, taking one’s people to war and setting in motion a chain of events that are always unknowable but always self damaging. Just look at Tony Blair’s performance last week and in the years since 2002. Look at the statements being made by Paul Bremer in 2003/4. When we remove the emotional character from a study of war we’re left with very little to study and almost nothing from which to learn.
I don’t have access to Austin Long’s full report but my recollection of the discussions surrounding its publication is that it dealt solely with the AQI issue that was of far more pressing concern to Americans than it was to the Anbar tribes. Had they not also been fighting the USMC and Iranian oriented militia’s the ISI would have been unable to even attempt to usurp power.
Steve
Speaking of artistic (including allegorical?) representations of conflict, I’d like to throw District 9 into the mix. Not only was it quite entertaining, I liked the way it brought out certain ‘peripheral’ aspects of conflict: the passivity of a controlled population, overlaying deep grievances; the lure of high-tech weapons; the role of private contractors; even Nigerian arms dealers!
No, not a realistic film, but then I’m not sure it’s that much less realistic than Red Dawn…even as a teenager I didn’t buy Cuba invading Colorado…
On a more serious note, I would suggest two Russian films:
9th Company [Afghanistan]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_9th_Company
War [Chechnya]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_(2002_film)
Not necessarily great, but very compelling.
Many of the best counter-insurgency movies are actually westerns or urban crime movies. Michael Mann’s Heat, Abel Ferrara’s King of New York or Robert Aldrich’s Ulzana’s Raid for example. From that angle The Wire is probably a more apt example for counter-insurgency than Generation Kill.
Also in a similar vein the British thrillers Resurrection Man and The Long Good Friday about various aspects of the Troubles are quite entertaining – if not strictly movies about counter- insurgency. Other examples from NI more strictly about counter-insurgency would be Alan Clarke’s BBC teleplays Contact and Psy-Warriors.
Peter Davis’s 1974 documentary Hearts and Minds re Vietnam is also worth watching as is the 2004 documentary about The Weather Undergound. Also worth a mention is Volker Schlondorff’s Circles of Deceit about the Lebanese civil war and the 1972 movie State of Siege about the Tupamoro guerillas in Uruguay.
Have to disagree about some previous comments re Intimate Enemies. For me it is the best movie about counter-insurgency that I have seen – apart from TBOA.
Having read Steve Connors rather droll comment about Independence Day I’d also like to nominate Mel Gibson’s The Patriot for inclusion.
Also I agree about the entertaining aspect of Red Dawn -1984. The remake – scheduled for Nov 2010 – features a group of latter day Minutemen fighting off a Chinese invasion. Yup its official – the military entertainment complex has spoken – and I think we can now safely say that the public era of the Sino-U.S. Cold War has begun. At least it will keep us all in jobs I suppose.