The American movie industry is responding to the United States’s invasion of Iraq much more quickly than it responded to Vietnam. A veritable platoon of movies dealing with Iraq and/or the ‘war on terror” is about to land on our shores — Lions for Lambs, The Kingdom, A Mighty Heart and our own Gavin Hood’s Rendition are all lined up for release in the near future. This week, we have In the Valley of Elah.
It is the second film to be directed by Paul Haggis, whose Crash got the 2004 best-picture Oscar. He is also a scriptwriter much in demand by the Clint Eastwoods of the world, especially when making sombre films about boxers or big, sombre war movies. In the Valley of Elah is rather Eastwoody, in fact, in that it is big and sombre, and deals (like Flags of Our Fathers) with soldiering and the effects of war. The title comes from the place where, in the Bible, David fought Goliath, so the film’s intention of telling a David-versus-Goliath story is made clear.
The David is a retired military man, Hank Deerfield, who embodies the stoical masculine values of a respected veteran; both his sons have followed him into the military. Now his youngest, Mike, has come back from Iraq but almost immediately disappeared. Has he just gone AWOL, on a spree or the like, or has something worse happened? In his doggedly uncompromising way, Hank wants to find the truth behind his son’s disappearance. In the process, he will find that the patriotic values he holds dear have not been upheld by the American soldiers in Iraq, but their experience there has in fact ripped them to shreds.
So Hank’s the David, but who or what is the Goliath? The whole dehumanising experience of war? The humanitarian disaster of American military adventurism? The resultant corruption of American civic virtues? The film is rather too subtle to want to name the Goliath specifically, so the giant is perhaps represented by all of these — and a policing system that is not necessarily interested in the whole truth and nothing but the truth if such a truth is embarrassing. Moreover, this Goliath is not ultimately felled by the courageous David.
Hank is played by Tommy Lee Jones, who brings all his saggy-faced gravitas to the role. In the past he has turned that same dolorous countenance to humorous ends, as in the Men in Black movies, so it takes a small adjustment to see that he is playing it entirely straight this time. In the end, though, he delivers a sound and moving portrayal of a man of old-fashioned moral probity up against a gigantic vacuum where virtue and honesty should reside.
Coming on to Hank’s side in his search for the truth is a single-mom cop up against her own Goliath — the mindless sexism of her fellow-policemen. Charlize Theron plays the cop in appropriately dowdy fashion; having done ugly for Monster and dirty for North Country, she now demonstrates her skill at doing plain. It is, however, an almost entirely functional role that you could imagine any one of a number of other competent actors filling without undue discomfort.
In the Valley of Elah comes across as a tough-minded film, a pained self-examination of the present state of American values. It is shot with bleak elegance, and Hank’s steady plod towards the truth holds one’s attention for the film’s duration. Perhaps it embodies a lesson that much of the American populace (and/or politician class) needs to sit through, and I suppose it would be ideologically valuable if it takes such people through the process step by step. It is undoubtedly a good, well-made film, but it would be hard to describe it as enjoyable.
Besides, the conclusions it reaches are views long held by those who opposed the war in Iraq, who saw this disaster coming and who are more concerned about the human catastrophe befalling the people of Iraq than they are about one American soldier’s or his family’s traumas, real though those may be. In that respect, In the Valley of Elah reminds one of all those Vietnam movies where the suffering of the Vietnamese people was rendered a mere backdrop to the wounds inflicted on the American psyche. Yes, it’s an American movie, about Americans, for Americans; that’s fine, but forgive me if I feel sorrier for the Iraqis.