Documentary on Afghan war attempts to show what soldiers experience

When you're making a documentary about a subject as frustrating and controversial as war-ravaged 21st-century Afghanistan, is it possible to suppress your own political opinions?

Sebastian Junger, who wrote "The Perfect Storm," thinks so — even if, off-camera, he freely expresses his opinions about President Bush's handling of Afghanistan shortly after 9/11.

"I was there, in 2001, when Kabul was taken from the Taliban, and I was getting hugged on the streets of Kabul," he said when he brought his Afghan film, "Restrepo," to the Seattle International Film Festival last month. (The movie opens for a regular run on Friday.)

"The Afghans were so grateful. Something like 90 percent of them were in support of the U.S. military action. It's important to make a distinction between that and the opinion of the Afghans when the Soviets invaded. It's a very, very different thing.

"And it does point out the incredible failure of the Bush administration to capitalize on something that was militarily, politically, given to them on a platter — and he screwed it up. It was just a terrible blunder, and a lot of people died because of that."

But the Bush policies are not the subject of "Restrepo," which Junger codirected with photographer Tim Hetherington — or "War," the current best-seller that Junger wrote about being embedded with American soldiers in Afghanistan's Korengal Valley.

"We wanted to make a film that was nonpolitical," said Hetherington, who accompanied Junger to the festival.

"Regardless of your politics, whether you're for or against the war, this nation needs to really digest somehow, to see, to experience, what soldiers go through — to come as close as possible to it, and kind of honor that, and use that as a basis for dialogue.

"We ask a lot of these young men. On the one hand we ask them to fight a war, and on the next we expect them to negotiate village policies. It's a lot to ask of 18-year-olds from Wisconsin."

Despite the box-office failures of so many movies about Iraq and Afghanistan, Hetherington is convinced that there's a huge appetite for a film that brings about understanding.

"Where I hope we succeed," he said, "is by making a film that bridges the gap between the military community and mainstream American public. Journalists and the military have had an antagonistic relationship, and often documentary films that come out of those experiences end up being kind of antagonistic in some ways.

"We hope that our film builds bridges between the communities, to discuss these issues in a more meaningful and constructive way. That intimacy with the soldiers, that dynamic of bonding that we really captured in the film."

When he started on the twin projects, Junger thought he would write a book and make a documentary — "though I had no idea what that entailed," he admitted. "It was just a word that I knew and I thought I'd see what happens. Thank God Tim came on board. We hit it off immediately."

Hetherington estimates he shot about 40,000 images in Afghanistan, then had to cut the material down to 120 images.

"That's a very tough process because you become attached to the images," he said. "The image becomes loaded with the experience you had when you made that image. Often you can shoot a terrible picture but because you were shooting somewhere very significant, that picture becomes very meaningful for you."

Why use different titles for the film and the book?

"They're really different works," Junger said. "On the practical level, I didn't want people to think 'Restrepo' was a film version of 'War.' The book is really quite different. It's not about the Afghan war, it's not about the Bush administration's blunders in Afghanistan ...

"It's about the universal experience that men have in combat. When I called the book 'War,' I really meant this is what war feels like. And I have the feeling that doesn't change much."

"Restrepo" is a medic's name, but it's more than that as the documentary's title.

"It's also a metaphor for something bigger," Hetherington said. "Restrepo is every soldier, or what every soldier goes through when they lose their friend. Restrepo was a name with great significance to everyone in that valley.

"It was the outpost that they built and fought for, it was a guy they really loved, and we felt that word, that single word, summarized most effectively their complicated emotions about that experience."

"We didn't want anything in the film that the soldiers didn't have access to," Junger said. "We wanted to reproduce their reality as faithfully as possible. We didn't interview the families; every person in that film is fighting in the Korengal Valley. You never escape the bubble of the Korengal Valley when you watch the film."

In a brief epilogue, "Restrepo" notes that the battle for Korengal Valley was eventually abandoned after the filmmakers left. Did they see this coming?

"Everyone knew at some point the U.S. was going to pull out of that valley," Jungers said. "The soldiers knew that in an abstract sense. I think it was painful when it happened, but I don't think it really surprised anyone. The Taliban had sort of geared down operations, so I think both sides were kind of making the decision it wasn't worth it."

"In the end, the only thing to lose was face," Hetherington said. "And maybe it was a good idea for the Americans to say this is stupid."

John Hartl: johnhartl@yahoo.com.