The Hurt Locker is a movie with a rhythm that really pins you down on your seat. Intense, realistic, cruel, humane (as much a film about war can be) and strange at times. Mark Boal, with his 2nd script after the “In the Valley of Elah” managed to get his Oscar for the script with this movie.
So, it is a film worth seeing for sure. Was it however so good, to accomplish such a breakthrough and have Kathryn Bigelow as the first woman director that won an Oscar? Meaning, weren’t in the past (even the recent one) other women directors that made great movies? Or was the time ripe for such a breakthrough? Why do I think that neither of the two cases are the real reason? Here is a list of movies that could stand equally next to this one:
- The Piano, written AND directed by Jane Campion (ok, she is from New Zealan, not the States!)
- Awakenings, directed by Penny Marshall
- Frida and Titus by Julie Taymor, both amazing movies
and possibly some others that I have seeing (what seems like) ages ago:
- A Night Full of Rain, Film d’amore e d’anarchia by Lina Wertmüller
- The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum (co-directed), Rosa Luxemburg by Margarethe von Trotta
Also, if I were an American, especially if I had friends and/or relatives in Iraq, this film would have to say more than it does now. One excellent point in the movie is the revelation of the real motives behind the heroism of the main character, Staff Sergeant William James (Jeremy Renner).
My rating: 07/10
Kathryn Bigelow
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