The Essence of Combat: Making 'Black Hawk Down'

I’m surprised by how a film about a film can age so badly. The chapters focusing on the military training of actors, the composition of music combining electronic instruments with North African motifs, and the bringing of a realistic impression to completion with the use of digital effects are still worthy of attention, but a solid hour of this documentary is spent defending the US military in response to the invasion of Afghanistan. The actors and filmmakers attempt to convince us of the occasional unavoidability of war and sing odes to the heroism of American soldiers. It is understandable that militant pro-American propaganda would crop up in a film about a film made in collaboration with the Pentagon and, furthermore, in a climate of intensively building up the national security apparatus, but it could certainly have been dealt with less aggressively. (11/05/2016)