Generation Kill
2008
Original language: English
- war & politics
- drama
- action & adventure
The story
The first 40 days of the war in Iraq as seen through the eyes of an elite group of U.S. Marines who spearheaded the invasion along with an embedded Rolling Stone reporter. A vivid account of the soldiers and of the forces that guided them in an often-improvised initiative.
What it’s like
Handheld, documentary-style camera stays close to the men in dusty convoys, with washed-out tan desert under a flat white sun and heat shimmer rising off the road. Interiors are lit by sickly fluorescent glare and the green glow of night-vision optics. Mostly diegetic sound carries the show: engine grind, radio chatter, the crack of rifles, and long stretches of idle talk in the back of a Humvee. Music is sparse. The pace is loose and episodic, with long, restless waiting broken by sudden, chaotic firefights. Violence is brief, abrupt and unglamorized, with some civilian casualties and little gore, but the dread between engagements is constant. Profanity and crude humor run through nearly every scene, and the bleak sense of institutional confusion weighs on everything. The emotional register is tense, rueful and loyal, following a band of young Marines whose camaraderie, boredom and growing disillusion shape their arcs. It suits viewers who want a grounded, unsentimental war drama built on ensemble character and realism, watched in one focused sitting rather than as background.
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