The Hurt Locker

  "The rush of battle is often a potent and lethal addiction, for war is a drug” –Chris Hedges. From the bitter darkness these words emerge, slowly fading in. The white lettering contrasts the pitch-blackness of the background and they slowly dissolve, all but the words “war is a drug”, which lag behind, and remain on the screen for a moment longer then they too begin to fade away.
Jump-cutting in to the action, as if just turning on an old television, we see the ground moving from a very low angle. The ground is uneven, dry, and desert like. The camera glitches, and a side angle of the bomb robot is seen moving at a fast pace.
They are in Baghdad.
 Women and children are running. Cars are honking, stuck in traffic. Soldiers are running out of vehicles on to the streets; guns loaded and running towards the center. Not knowing what is occurring, the public begins to frantically look at all directions for the cause of the commotion. All at once the world seems to be in the action, focused on the unorganized mayhem. The soldiers in the trucks, the pedestrians running away, spectators from afar, all are watching; confused and scared.
  

 An extreme close-up of soldier’s eyes is seen. Jumping back between the soldiers eyes and the point of view of the robot, a Kuleshov Effect is created, letting the viewer know they’re in control of the robot.
The robot reaches the target. With unsteady hands the soldier is unable to uncover the object. Constant vigilance is a must. Thompson, one of the soldiers by the computer, takes over the controls and discovers a bomb is lying on the ground. People from the surrounding buildings are now watching the spectacle. Thompson decides to use the robot once again to blow up the bomb.
 

 Navigating through a herd of goats the robot is sent on the rocky terrain once again towards the bomb. Attached to the robot is a small two-wheeled wagon with explosives. Reaching an unsteady rocky hill, the wagon unhinges and a wheel falls off. They’re stuck. The audience grows. Thompson decides to go in himself.

Strapping on the bomb suit with the help of his comrades, “blaster one” heads down the train tracks. Eye line match shows Thompson looking at buildings, a helicopter, and people in shops as he walks.
 

 A stranger comes in the scene and Sanborn pushes him away. Thompson reaches the bomb and sets up. Success. Blaster one turns around and slowly walks back as Eldridge and Sanborn chitchat about their grass business.
 

Eldridge sees a man with a phones and senses danger. Sprinting towards the man, yelling at him to put the phone down, the bomb detonates and the world seems to extremely slow down. By this point Blaster one had already started running away from the bomb. His breathing is heavy and as the ground and rubble rise up, so does the explosion. The blast sends Thompson to the grown, and in silence he lays there as the smoke clears, lifeless.

 The establishing scene sets a tone of desperation and fear, which are two common themes throughout the Fabula. Another great scene that leaves a deep impression is when the bomb squad is called into a location in the middle of the night to see if the bomb that had just gone off was a suicide attempt or just a bomb. The darkness is confusing, and the constant change of point of view shots disorients the viewer, like the first scene the camera is unsteady and swish pans take up most of the shots. It distills in us a sense of uncertainty and desperation.

  The darkness changes up the pace of the film compared to the first scene. The viewer cannot see anything more than what the flashlights shows, and the constant fires around the area add to the disorder of what is occurring. Different to the first scene in which we could see everything, the fact that little to none was shown at that point makes one more anxious to keep watching. The way in which the form is used, using the hand cameras and eye line matching, creates an effect as if one is there alongside the soldiers, fighting and trying to survives the war.