Armadillo

This war drama brings forth the travails of soldiers who are putting up at Armadillo, an army base camp at a distance of just a kilometer from the Afghan rebels in the southern Afghan province of Helmand.

Documentary filmmaker Janus Metz, along with cameraman Lars Skree, has tried to highlight the frailties of war and the Danish soldiers who were their subjects. Myriad conjectures were drawn from this documentary that’s focused on the lives of these soldiers. It tracks them for six months, keeping an eye on every move of theirs. It puts forth the black hole that young men are forced into, in the name of war. On the part of soldiers, it is nothing less than trauma to put up a brave front on the battle field, where senses are numbed by reckless firing and bombing, unprecedented bloodbath, grieving families, all driven by the fire to triumph, no matter what may come.

While it did kick start a whole new debate on the government policy on war and its superficial outlook on the same, it did unravel the drastic consequences of war; its deadly ramifications on soldiers, and those who are caught up in between owing to inexplicable circumstances, or a rather cruel twist of fate.

Armadillo is a documentary that brings to you the realities of war through a group of young Danish soldiers. The movie begins with the celebrations and the sad departures that precede the deployment of these soldiers, in Afghanistan. These young men are shown full of high spirits, rearing to go at the army. All the illusions of these soldiers disappear the moment they hit their face off with war.

The director actually makes you feel the pain that these soldiers go through, and makes you experiencing the gut wrenching fear that grips the hearts of those in war. It does not end there. After going through a crescendo of nerves, emotions, doubt and fear, the soldiers finally return home. This is when the movie embosses the fact that the war never gets over for a person, who has been in it; it stays there with him throughout his life.