errol morris' STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE (2008)

"When you're in war, things change."
- Spc. Jeremy Sivitz

amid the unending controversy and contentiousness surrounding the United States' military occupation of Iraq, the revelations in early 2004 of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison remain the longest, darkest shadow over our continuing presence in the Middle East. while opinions about the war and its prosecution vary from person to person all over the world, the reaction to the Abu Ghraib photographs was unified: in the humiliation of these men, whatever their crimes, was the humiliation of an entire nation already struggling (and struggling to this day) to convince itself and others of the righteousness of its task.

perhaps as tragic, though, was the whimper with which American society eventually edged Abu Ghraib out of its consciousness. after months of soul searching and hand-wringing on the public's part (and no small amount of posturing from every corner of the political sphere) the Bush administration won the day by doling out prison stints and dishonorable discharges to the low-ranking soldiers involved, and brushing off any notion of any further culpability. simply a matter, we were told, of the proverbial bad apples.

such an blithe dodge to such a monumental issue is, of course, fertile ground for the sort of fluffy, finger-pointing activist documentaries Bush has so generously inspired these past eight years, which makes Errol Morris' Standard Operating Procedure that much more important: America's most distinguished, inspired nonfiction filmmaker, Morris here engages on a moral and intellectual level rather than a political one, and remains steadfastly inquisitive in the face of an inconceivably bleak subject. he is fascinated by the reality that Lynndie England and her compatriots are both victim and perpetrator, and cognizant that the circumstances of their monstrousness have deep roots and broad implications; while the endgame of scapegoating and political maneuvering are certainly worthy of scrutiny, Standard Operating Procedure is far more interested in the grander narrative of war and humanity.

not unusually for Morris, the film hinges around a series of interviews. we hear from former Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, insistent that everpresent U.S. intelligence operatives set the tone for the treatment of prisoners; from Tim Dugan, a non-military interrogator working at the prison and attesting to lack of useful intelligence emerging from its chambers; from Brent Pack, a special investigator tasked with interpreting the photographic evidence and, in one of the film's most chilling sequences, delineating the thin legal distinctions between "criminal acts" and "standard operating procedure."

most illuminating, though, are Morris' sit-downs with the offending soldiers, who speak candidly despite an almost visible weight of regret and even confusion. Spc. Sabrina Harman explains of a big smile and thumbs-up in frame with a dead interrogatee as a reflexive snapshot pose. Spc. Jeremy Sivitz speaks of his family's good military name dragged through the mud because he was unwilling to voice his objections to the superior officers involved, while Sgt. Javal Davis describes spending his days guarding Iraqi detainees while the fruits of their countrymen's labor sent US soldiers home in boxes draped with flags, and how that anger and confusion manifests itself when military intelligence officers start encouraging the guards to "soften up" the detainees.

we even hear from Lynndie England herself (looking now somewhat less like a stoned teenage boy) as she discusses spending the early hours of her twenty-first birthday in the throes of an Abu Ghraib all-nighter, and speaks distantly of a love (for abuse ringleader Cpl. Charles Graner) that blinded her to the ramifications of her actions, which included posing for or taking many a famous photograph.

if there is more than the suggestion of apology or rationalization in these soldiers' words, it has been left on the cutting room floor. instead, the film's participants seek only to clarify -- to take this opportunity to speak their piece. it is devastating, but we see in the end that they are ordinary people put in extraordinarily horrible circumstances for which there is little context. we do not forgive, but we inch toward understanding.

there is all of this and much more in Morris' savagely lucid film, which is every bit as hypnotic as 2003's Fog Of War or indeed any of his other work. his sense for structure remains impeccable, and he even ups the visual ante with striking graphics work and evocative, bleached-out "reenactment" footage that makes an impression without upending the film's harsh reality.

in the end, though, it's not his considerable gifts as a stylist or technician that make Erroll Morris such a force in nonfiction film -- it's his knack for extracting the truth, whether from images, words, or even faces. and while Standard Operating Procedure may be necessarily short on objective answers about the horrors of Abu Ghraib, it remains encouraging for us all that there is that much more light cast on a dark hour.

(from the KNOXVILLE VOICE)

bryan bertino's THE STRANGERS (2008)

what are the terms of the contract between a work of horror and its audience? it’s an interesting question with regard to any and all of the genre’s forms, from oral tradition to Stephen King, but it’s most pressing where the horror film is concerned: we’re asked, there in the dark, to place our trust in a variety of terror that will engage us on its own visceral terms rather than those tethered to our imaginations, and what we generally ask in return is to find entertainment in the provocation of our fears. horror fans come in many forms, of course, from the desensitized gorehound to the teenage girl two rows in front of you that collapses in laughter after each shriek without pausing to breathe; so, too, do the movies themselves run an astonishing gamut of styles and sensibilities, each wholly inappropriate for the wrong sort of audience. but the contract remains, and no matter how perverse the escapism is, it's still perfectly reasonable to expect that escape.

in many ways The Strangers is an exemplary American horror thriller, and a confident, undeniably auspicious debut for writer/director Bryan Bertino. the story is minimal, sure, and not entirely unfamiliar: two young lovers (Scott Speedman and Liv Tyler) find themselves alone in a remote summer home as a trio of masked interlopers, motive-free save for bloodlust, attack them unremittingly through the night.

it's a premise that demands quite a lot from its execution, and Bertino is up to the challenge. this is the rare horror film in which aspiring survivors do not simply run amok, lapsing in judgment at the plot's cruel whims; they are instead drawn as finely as the brisk running time will allow, and act with logic and dignity throughout. we are scared with them because we are ushered comfortably into their heads, and we root for them because we are unable to remove ourselves from the overwhelming doom. the film is intimate, even claustrophobic, and once the terrorizing begins it is never unclear that two against three are vastly unfavorable odds.

aesthetically, too, the film is accomplished. though Bertino cribs his creeps and crawls from elsewhere (particularly recent European horror) it all marries together handsomely, from the slow, sure burn of the first act to the nail-biting melee of the third. the antagonists' simple, striking masks (one little more than a small burlap sack) carry the innuendo of inhumanity as their figures initially fade into and pop out of the careful frames, and later suffocate any hope of mercy, or even the barest explanation. there is creepiness to spare in every empty room, creak or sudden twist of the head, until the film tires of being creepy and throws the curtain aside on a symphony of loud, unforgiving malevolence. there is relatively little by way of the graphic violence, but graphic violence would be beside the point -- the violence has long since crept from the screen and into our own helpless engagement.

more important than its craft, however, and more important than its power, is this: The Strangers is first and foremost a work of irredeemable garbage.

there are, of course, those who would say the same thing about any given horror film, with varying degrees of validity. and there's damn sure little to defend the spate of witless, sadistic Xeroxes currently masquerading as mainstream American horror. but what makes The Strangers so egregious, so thoroughly immoral, is that it's very tangibly a worthy genre entry; its artifice and effectiveness preclude the sort of dismissal we might reserve for, say, One Missed Call or whichever numeral they're remaking Saw under this year. it demands and even deserves to be taken seriously, to the degree that when the lights come up and we realize we've just seen a glorified snuff film while Kung Fu Panda played next door, there's little to do but take the entire genre to task, and ourselves as its accomplice.

but that's a trap. The Strangers' real crime, the one that so readily outshines what might otherwise be called virtues, is that behind its polish there is nothing intended to provoke thought or entertainment; it's a glib construction existing only to manipulate your fears and sour your stomach about the depths of human nature. (worst of all the film plays out under the auspices that it was "inspired by true events", a transparent stab at legitimizing its bleak, abhorrent ending.) more than anything else The Strangers seems a tailor-made validation of Michael Haneke's wry, inscrutable Funny Games, which actively chides and goads its audience for daring to eke entertainment from a murderous home invasion sure to end badly for any innocent with the misfortune to be involved. here, in The Strangers, is the same film lobotomized, substituting slick, sick panache for an inkling of thought or conscience.

this is not what horror film is about. the best of them parade wit, joy, ingenuity, and subtext, while even the worst can rely on intrigue and formula to satisfy, even delight, while they scare. and while it's to be acknowledged that there always have been and always will be works akin to The Strangers, on both its own terms and those of its vexing, meritless cynicism, those films don't typically come in third place at the box office; as little we can ask and expect of mainstream horror, it's always been encouraging that films taking us to the edge are typically willing to give us a lift back.

(from the KNOXVILLE VOICE)