Lone Survivor, a film very loosely based on the story of a Navy SEAL squadron left stranded to battle against the Taliban, is a perfect illustration of how Western culture can be racist by omission. It paints in the broadest colors, specifically with race, when it deals with the characterizations of the people depicted in the film. Resultantly, the filmmaking diminishes the real-world actions of its heroes by operating through polarizing stereotypes that turn the film into a murder-by-numbers slasher film in the style of a Passion Play.
The film begins with several sequences featuring Taliban warlords brutally murdering their own men in a cartoonishly-evil fashion. The information that audiences are given about these caricatures of human beings is that they are known as the “guy in the red scarf” or the “guy with no ear lobes.” When these bad guys appear onscreen, the only relationship audiences are given with them is one that is equivalent to spotting Waldo hiding behind an illustrated bush. The movie does nothing but present these Taliban warlords as two-dimensional, unquestionably evil characters.
Perhaps the Taliban has earned this depiction, but this method of storytelling does nothing but dehumanize the people of the region. Despite their horrible and unspeakable evils, the men in the Taliban are (regrettably) human and their actions are ones that people all over the world are capable of, as upsetting as that is. Even integrated journalist Adam B. Ellick, the man who brought the story of Malala to the national press, stresses the importance of understanding the operations and thoughts of the Taliban if they are ever to be defeated.
This dehumanization is unfortunate in Lone Survivor but is hardly unique to the film. Last year’s The Impossible, another despicable film, cast Thailanders as background characters to their own tragedy, at the hands of the 2004 Tsunami, as the film mourned over the ruined vacation of several non-native tourists. The Impossible chose to portray a particular story, yes, but it chose to portray exactly the least interesting story that occurred during those horrible days. The moment in that film when the family of protagonists boarded a plane and looked back down on the destruction they were leaving behind marginalized the entire Asian experience; it was a strong example of racism by omission.
Lone Survivor is not much better about choosing the most interesting story based off the real life incident (more on that later), but really becomes an upsetting film in the depiction of its protagonists. The film is sparked to action when three Afghani goat herders, who may alarm the Taliban warlords the SEALs were sent to kill, catch the four SEALs unaware. The SEALs have to make a quick decision on what to do with their three captives and whether or not they need to terminate their mission.
The moral argument here is interesting, despite how frustrating the resolution of it is, but the script does nothing with it. Audiences are given little to no explanation as to why each soldier feels the way they do and before any real discussion breaks out a commanding officer decides for them. They are to release the Afghanis and make a break for the top of the mountain after calling for an airlift. This could have been a moment where audiences were let, for the first time, into the minds of these characters and the reasoning behind their noble or ignoble intentions.
The men are initially shown to be loyal husbands and fiancées who love Ron Burgundy and the American flag. They represent a typical depiction of the American hero and in reality they gave their lives being heroic. However, the film doesn’t bother to flesh out these characters beyond those initial impressions and instead spends most of its time drowning them in a hail of bullets. The characters become a pure representation of American jingoism, spouting lines such as, “You can die for your country – I’m going to live for mine,” while killing untold waves of Afghani people.
The characters are cast as martyrs who are fighting for “us.” While Taliban soldiers are dispatched with a dispassionate bullet to the head, the SEALs are slowly picked off piece-by-piece by the enemy bullets. The sound design depicts every excruciating splatter and crunch of their bodies being broken down before audiences’ eyes. Audiences are meant to revel in the sacrifice these men made while experiencing their pain. This goes on for over an hour, as their bodies tumble down the cliff sides like ragdolls. The sequences recall Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ in their obvious attention to an obsession with pain and gore. An unnecessary and fictional moment where Marcus Luttrell, the key protagonist, slowly pulls a piece of shrapnel out of his leg highlights this with an elevated moment of sound design and some excruciating close-ups. What is this sequence supposed to make audiences feel?
When one SEAL makes a doomed run to the top of a cliff to retrieve his communication device, the film kicks into slow motion. The Taliban soldiers approach from behind, an act of incredible cowardice, and plug the man full of holes. The image is graphic and the holes pierce clean through the man’s body, revealing a mountain range on the other side. The film revels in the moment and turns it into an operatic, Christ-like moment with appropriate lens flares and hair lighting. The moment is dramatic, to be sure, but hollow and overly sentimental about death. Audiences are meant to revel in this moment as well, knowing that the heroic American fought his fight to the bitter end, guns blazing, and never saying “die.”
Mark Wahlberg’s Marcus Luttrell is presented immediately as the “lone survivor,” a sequence that removes much of the tension of the film and squarely reveals director Peter Berg’s intent that this film will be a snuff film, and he tells audiences, “We wanted that fight at the highest volume.” Marcus is presented as the sole SEAL that does not want to kill the goat herders but also isn’t afraid to pull the pin of a grenade to kill a threatening Afghani, despite a child being in the room. He’s a soldier and he’s out to fulfill a mission, no matter how much of the opposition he has to take with him. As his fellow SEAL partner is dying, Wahlberg’s Luttrell says, “I’m sorry that we didn’t kill more of these motherfuckers.” In response, his teammate says, “Oh, don’t be fucking sorry. We’re going to kill way more of them.” It is video game logic and simplifies even these characters and their real-life analogues’ views on the “War on Terror” to a game of “Call of Duty.”
When Luttrell ends up at a local village that is under threat by the Taliban, the villagers come to his aid; audiences are later told this is in respect to their honor code of Pastunwhali. They take him in, nurse his wounds, and refuse to turn him over to the Taliban. The result: The Taliban open fire on the village, massacring the people and their way of life. How are the deaths of these truly selfless people depicted? Without a thought. Just like in The Impossible, the characters with the most to lose are relegated to the background of a story about Westerners, albeit heroic Westerners.
How much more effective would the story have been if Berg had followed the life of Luttrell’s saviors, who risked everything for a stranger? At the very least, the film could have crosscut between these people to make them more than two-dimensional Afghanis who toil to save our martyr Luttrell. This approach clearly expresses the fact that American pain, toil, and death is more operatic and noble than those unknown people in an Afghan village.
All of this is a shame because there is a truly tragic story to be told in Lone Survivor. It is a story of two countries in a bitter dispute and the lives caught in-between. Yet, just like Pat Tillman before them, the people involved are being needlessly built up beyond the realities of the situation. Marcus Luttrell’s initial reports of what happened to him and his crew in Afghanistan told of how they were attacked by seven to ten Taliban forces. Lone Survivor depicts over two hundred and has the confidence in its convictions to tell audiences of the reality of the situation by opening the film with real footage of the heroes. This will convince some of this film’s veracity, but that would be a mistake.
Lone Survivor is cinematic trickery and manipulation at its worst, a propaganda film. What would happen if audiences were given a film that presented two sides of a conflict and the stories of how each side got into the predicament they found themselves in? This would allow audiences to make up their own minds about the actions before them and would serve to highlight just how heroic the Navy SEALs actually were to walk determinedly into the face of danger, just as the honorable Afghani’s in the film’s finale did.
