Jarhead 4K 2005

“I love my job,” says Sergeant Sykes, looking at the burning torches of Kuwait's oil wells. “Where else would you see something like this?” The pillars of fire rise tens of meters into the sky. A light rain of oil falls as soldiers dig holes in the sand to sleep in. “This is the blood of the Earth,” says Suofford, wiping himself down. He will never see any other human blood, even though there seems to be a war going on around him.

Mendes' war is filled with a peculiar American beauty: routine and boredom, endless stops in endless camps, oil sloshing underfoot, football in gas masks, a wall of shame with photos of girls who never came. The only shot Suoford fires doesn't kill anyone. Pure existentialism and the book by Camus that the main character reads — as a hint to the viewer. An outsider. A stranger in this war. Simply unnecessary here. Nevertheless, you will always feel like a soldier looking for his war. While invisible planes will shed blood for you, simply covering the entire area of operations with carpet bombing.

This is a very difficult war movie, where instead of the flight of Valkyries and the smell of napalm in the morning, there are endless wanderings and stops, everyday life, which is brightened only by simple soldier's swearing, drinking parties, and discussions of civilian passions. Sam Mendes manages to make a film about the war in Iraq without stooping to the level of propaganda. He is not interested in politics; what matters to him is people. Soldiers. One of the 300,000 who walk the endless Arabian deserts, trying to dodge bombing raids by planes that don't always know who is friend and who is foe.

Jarhead is perhaps one of the most underrated films of the 21st century. It received little audience sympathy, modest ratings from critics, no festival awards, and, as the quintessence of all this, was a box office flop. Not everyone accepted Mendes's existential war. At the same time, it is an original and powerful film, shot by a true master. It is harsh and uncompromising, devoid of opportunism and the desire to stand out. Mendes does not provide answers. In fact, he does not even ask questions. He simply shows the story of one soldier. A small man who went through the war without ever seeing it.