May 7, 2010: Human Terrain
The last of the Hot Docs documentaries for me this year, Human Terrain tells the story of a US military strategy in recent years to train their soldiers in cultural awareness, since those in the middle east are operating overseas in territory populated by people whose customs are unfamiliar to those raised in the insulated western world.
As training sites are built to resemble Iraqi and Afghani towns, with location-appropriate civilian players, the soldiers grumble about how well the simulation actors are paid. At the same time, military leaders seem to understand that they need to do something differently, but they don’t always see the problem for what it is. Many of the soldiers gamely try to make use of their new training once they are in the field, but those on the front as well as those behind the scenes have a hard time accepting that culture can’t be put on a laminated card in your wallet. It’s more than just translations.
I found the film to be fascinating for its first half, but then it got fairly dry, with lots of transcribed audio recordings as the film explored the conflicted experiences of anthropologists who were hired to help design the training. One of the anthropologists became heavily involved with the military and was working on the front lines, and was killed in an ambush.
This film was playing to a Canadian audience, and the filmmakers said they hadn’t originally envisioned an audience outside the US, but I happen to think that it’s probably even more powerful in other countries, as the viewer can compare the attempt at understanding local culture, from an outside perspective, with the blunt techniques used to implement the understanding.
Examines the human scale of misunderstanding.
Post a Comment