Tuesday, April 5, 2011

"Armadillo" trailer - in UK Cinemas Friday 8th April 2011 - Directed By: Janus Metz Pedersen

Uploaded by on Jan 13, 2010 
 
Una delle opere più belle degli anni '60. L'inizio del film: Parma, la borghesia, i versi di Pasolini, la musica di Ennio Morricone, l'incapacità di scendere a patti col proprio destino.


Synopsis

The film starts with the soldiers' last days in Denmark before leaving for Afghanistan. Scenes include their emotional goodbyes as well as a party with a striptease dancer.

They are posted for a six month tour at Armadillo, a military base in Helmand province, Afghanistan, where some 270 Danish and British soldiers are based.

The film shows the soldiers going out on patrol. They hand out candy and gifts to the children. They question a local man about the Taliban who declines to cooperate and they return to base without incident.

The film depicts them as dividing their leisure time between maintaining their equipment and working out, calling home, playing 'shooter' computer games and watching pornographic videos amongst other things.

Later in the tour the soldiers encounter armed resistance from the Taliban. In the ensuing battles buildings are damaged and locals report livestock killed. Some locals receive compensations from the base.

A Danish commander becomes a victim of a roadside bomb and is evacuated to receive treatment for a skull fracture. He recovers and returns to Armadillo. Three Danish solders from a neighbouring camp die in an IED incident and the film records a memorial service for them. Directly following this there is a discussion questioning whether ambushing the Taliban will work and subsequently volunteers are recruited for a night patrol.

At dawn civilians are seen fleeing the area. The patrol comes under fire and a soldier is hit. In the ensuing chaos it transpires the Taliban position is directly in front of the patrol in a ditch only 3 metres away. A hand grenade is tossed into the ditch followed by the order to 'neutralize them' and subsequent sporadic gunfire is heard. Five Taliban are killed and there are graphic scenes of their bodies being pulled from the ditch and stripped of their weapons. Finally there is a concluding air strike.

Back at base the patrol congratulate each other on the morning's work and there is a debriefing with accounts of four Taliban found in the ditch groaning heavily being liquidated 'in the most humane way possible' and the remaining Taliban trying to crawl away being 'finished off' with 30-40 shots.

Subsequently it transpires that a soldier has called home discussing the episode with his parents and has given them the impression that wounded Taliban had been liquidated and that the soldiers had laughed about it at the debriefing. The parents have contacted the Danish Command about it and the commander addresses his men about the issues that raises. There is an ensuing debate amongst the men.

Later two of the soldiers on the patrol are awarded medals and the film concludes with scenes of jubilant homecomings and a return to civilian life. The final scene is of an introspective commander taking a shower.
 

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