Fat Ninja

 I just got back from seeing Jarhead. Having read the book, I went into this one with very high expectations. The short of it is that I was thoroughly blown away by the handling of the material, and even moreso by the faithfulness that the adaptation held with the prevalent themes in Swofford’s book of the same title.

While the book was largely well-received, I think as a film, the work will stand a different type of critic. I think a great many people will see this expecting the typical war film with, yes, an emotional underlying human story; but at the same time carefully segmented by intricate and pyrotechnic combat sequences.

This is not that war movie, and those who go into a theater expecting such will find it anticlimactic and disappointing; which is almost ironic. The film is so faithful to Swofford’s memoirs that audiences may literally experience the very same sort of  dischord between expectations and reality about the film that Swofford felt about his experiences in the first Persian Gulf War.  That’s a true testament to how closely the movie mirrors the book, I assure you.

I have seen fewer films that have been more true to their source as Jarhead. It represents a very unique anti-war film that sympathizes with the soldier and while it mingles with the politics behind the war, it is fairly covert in its ponderance of why we were truly there. That’s not to say it lacks conviction, or that it fails to take a stance on the subject. Quite the opposite.

The film, like the novel, is clearly opposed to war. But Jarhead isn’t concerned with pointing out the obvious fact that war is a terrible thing. Do any of us truly need to be reminded of this? Instead, it centers its sights firmly on the personal, spiritual, and emotional sacrifices made by the men and women who serve.

Jarhead is a film about the harrowing rite of passage that young men (and women) go through to become soldiers, and the ultimate costs of that transformation. In recollecting, Swofford relates, “I remember about myself a loneliness and poverty of spirit; mental collapse; brief jovial moments after weeks of exhaustion; discomfiting bodily pain; constant ringing in my ears; sleeplessness and drunkenness and desperation; fits of rage and despondency; mutiny of the self; lovers to whom I lied; lovers who lied to me. I remember going in one end and coming out the other. I remember being told I must remember and then for many years forgetting.”

This pitch and yaw of emotions is beautifully recreated in the film. We, as an audience, find ourselves in hysterics at one moment, when we are suddenly confronted by a turn of events that serves to remind us of the gravity and reality of the situation. While the screen-writing is very true to form, a large part of the film’s success lies in compelling performances from the entire cast. There isn’t a single character in the movie that doesn’t leave an impression on you.

Now, it’s been some time since reading the book (I’ve since started reading it a second time), and the movie offered scenes that I don’t recall reading about, but it was the film’s committment to the book’s pitch and tenor that I found most impressive. I recommend checking it out, but as I said, don’t go in expecting the usual fare of firefights, nor the typical examination of the moral grey area presented in combat.

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