Gunner Palace

The first of several upcoming documentaries that are headed here like ballistic missiles from Iraq, Gunner Palace succeeds in hitting home with Western audiences, a difficult task given our increasingly jaded attitude toward war ever since the advent of 24-hour satellite news coverage of the fighting. This film is, if nothing else, a jolting reminder that even CNN filters and censors certain realities of battle. Enter the embedded journalists to fill in the blanks, armed with digital cameras shooting thirty frames a second and total access to the daily lives and deaths of American servicemen.

And these servicemen are a new breed of soldier, having grown up on just as many anti-war movies as gun-blazing flag wavers, combined with being witness to reality television’s power to make average people into household names. This weird influence might explain why these kids embrace the media presence overseas and make love to the camera like their Vietnam counterparts never did: we get guys helpfully explaining how to fortify the armor of an under-protected Humvee with scrap metal, and black soldiers freestyle rapping about their war experience while drumming on the hoods of their tanks. This movie also demonstrates how hip hop really has become the soundtrack to the Iraq war, just as rock ‘n’ roll was to ‘Nam.

The grunt’s-eye-view provided by the film is by far its best quality; like the best art, Gunner Palace raises questions and doesn’t presume to answer them for you. Director Michael Tucker wisely shies away from politicizing and philosophizing and just shows the soldiers as they perform both on and off duty. And trust me, this alone is enough to leave in ruins any preconceptions and opinions you have of the war.

What can you make of the sight of an infantryman floating in the pool of Uday Hussein’s captured palace, quoting from the quintessential anti-war film, Full Metal Jacket: “I joined the army to travel to foreign countries, meet interesting, exotic people, and kill them. I wanted to be the first kid on my block with a confirmed kill,” without a hint of irony? This self-consciousness is equally alarming and disarming, genuinely disturbing and darkly amusing. Francois Truffaut once declared that it is impossible to make a true anti-war film, because movies inevitably end up making war look heroic and fun. After watching Platoon, which this movie also references at one point, Roger Ebert suggested in his review of the film that Truffaut might have modified his statement had he lived to see Oliver Stone’s harrowing portrayal of modern combat. And yet I am reminded of a kid I once worked with at Baskin Robbins who used to gleefully quote the Platoon line, “Hop on one foot, motherfucker!” from the scene where Charlie Sheen’s character kills an innocent villager.

This is the surreal tone Gunner Palace achieves. Images of an American soldier backlit by an Iraqi sunset while playing Hendrix on his electric guitar make it at times feel like a real Apocalypse Now, while the gritty hand held shots of urban warfare later look like a sequel to Blackhawk Down, when major combat has ended and Vonnegut’s proverbial “mopping up” begins. In fact, the movie opens with the title “Minor Combat,” as G.I.’s dodge 360-degree sniper fire. As the tagline points out, some stories really don’t make the nightly news. For moments like these, I encourage everyone to see Gunner Palace, and with any luck, your kids won’t be quoting from it in Gulf War 3.

-Andy Gately

Note: In an unprecedented move, the MPAA granted the film a PG-13 rating, despite over thirty uses of the F-word. Clearly, they understand the value of such an important historical document, and for once, I couldn’t agree with them more.