Screening Notes

The initial blast was in complete slow motion, shown four or five times.

The actual event leading up to it however, shows the act of war, the minute to minute activity, to be completely menial and chore like, making something out of the ordinary happening completely unprep-ed. The conversation (Owen talking about being dead, James talking about mortar’s coming through the roof) continues to discuss that unprepared ness for what is going to happen.

So many roof eyes. The idea of looking “up” besides across. Always being out of position in war, since the enemy only has to be a short distance away and holding a phone.

With the car bomb.

I love the scene when they reach the British (Austrailian?) men, and again, with the spit and rubbing, its such menial tasks, but under this pressure it becomes something so much more stressful. Specialist can’t do it. James has to come down and show him, but doesn’t do it himself. It’s a scene that shows why the Specialist is so worried about dying, he’s got no natural instincts of war. I mean, I wouldn’t have known why the bullets were jammed, or that the way to clean them was to spit and rub.

And again, with scoping, even after killing the men, they watch, and they (James and Sanborn) although have been elite officials up until this point, can’t help but close their eyes, get distracted, etc, ask for juice. The whole thing is a very rigorous and specific task. To learn how to do exactly this specific thing must not be hard, but to learn and remember every single part of the job is almost impossible, and that’s how mistakes are made, which seem to be made almost everytime. James is a freak, but also happens to retain more war knowledge than social knowledge, making him better for the jobs.