Jarhead

Snipers in Training, Swoff (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Troy (Peter Sarsgaard). ©2005, Universal Pictures.

 
“A story… A man fires a rifle for many years and he goes to war… But no matter what else he might do with his hands, his hands only remember the rifle,” says Anthony Swofford (Jake Gyllenhaal) in the opening moments of the film.

“Jarhead,” a film directed by Sam Mendes, is based on a book by the same Anthony Swofford, regarding his experiences as a scout/sniper. The film is set in the early 1990’s, just before Operation: Desert Storm. I’m struggling to think of a way to move forward with this review, if only because the film doesn’t have a narrative. It consists mostly of vignettes, well, no, not even… call them, perhaps, a series of moments in which the soldiers are living them out from one to the next. They eat, sleep, train, crap, all at the Sergeant’s command. Drill Instructor Fitch (Scott MacDonald) advises at one point, addressing a soldier’s ignorance of a procedure, “The recruit doesn’t know because I haven’t told him yet.”

That’s the way “Jarhead” works its message, though—between the lines. In these moments, some interminable, others absolutely bizarre, we witness the reprogramming of these young minds. They are not selected for their ingenuity, nor are they encouraged to think as individuals. They are being indoctrinated into the great war machine. In the corporate world, we call them “team players.” In the military, it’s referred to as “Esprit de Corps”—a colorful metaphor with absolutely no real meaning. If it had meaning, the leadership structure would be an integral and equal part of a team with an equal degree of say… but that’s not the case. What Swofford and the other troops of Golf Company discover, eventually, is that their decisions are made for them by people who believe they are more qualified to make them. The point isn’t whether or not they’ve earned that right.

As Swofford and a couple other soldiers point out at different times in the movie, they’re too young and naive to understand the commitments they’ve made. D.I. Fitch says, “What the fuck are you even doing here?” “Swoff,” as he’s known to his Company G pals, retorts, “Sir, I got lost on the way to college, sir.” How true. What other killing enterprise is allowed to place recruiters in high schools to catch students on their study break? Do you think they’re mosly recruiting intellectual youths who have academic and financial opportunities falling at their feet?

Staff Sgt. Sykes (Jamie Foxx) is your typical Company NCO. He believes his own hype, and dishes it out on the soldiers in the form of barbed insults meant to inspire simultaneous embarrassment, camaraderie and, most importantly, compliance. Don’t ask me exactly how that works, but some parents will be alarmed by the degree to which Bible verses and religion in general is desecrated in the process of these young men’s initiation into the military. Whoever made people believe that the military has a deep respect for god and religion couldn’t have spread a bigger lie. But this is a machinery that runs primarily on false pretense… but then, so often has religion.

There’s a scene where Swoff gets his dogtags and in the section that idenfies one’s religion he wanted it to read “NO PREFERENCE.” Three times, and they still screw it up. This is just one of numerous examples of the subtle way in which this film demonstrates the conformity forced upon these kids—young and impressionable enough to be swayed from developing individual identities and sensibilities from a world they have yet to experience. They’re influenced on what to think, believe and say before they have the experience to know other options exist.

In Swoff’s side are several thorns, Troy (Peter Sarsgaard), Fergus (Brian Geraghty) and Fowler (Evan Jones). Troy at first seems like a dyed-in-the-wool jarhead, but begins to get agitated by the waiting and the bureaucracy, all part of the Marine Corps, aka “the suck.” That Fergus manages to irritate Swoff with his irresponsbility is a gross understatement, as his own lapse of judgment results in latrine duty for Swoff—the “incinerate the outhouse waste with diesel fuel” variety. Fowler is simply a tactless nutcase who offends as much as he endangers… Somewhere there’s a recruiter who thought it a brilliant idea to give such men access to automatic weaponry and heavy artillery.

The performances by Gyllenhaal, Sarsgaard and Foxx are compelling enough to compensate for the lack of a solid, narrative thread. Foxx gives the impression of a real human being in Battle Dress Uniform… He expresses doubts but only between the lines of his propagandizing for the Corps. Sarsgaard has a couple of particularly effective nervous breakdowns. In Gyllenhaal’s face one can see a soldier somewhere halfway between a man and a child—as many soldiers sent to war are. The director wisely avoids playing out a cliché coming-of-age subplot where Swofford transforms completely from insecure adolescent to adult killing machine. Instead, Gyllenhaal portrays Swoff in such a way that his always critical and introspective mind seems horribly out of place in the Marine Corps.

Somewhere between the lines, this film drives home a point regarding the dehumanization that arises from the enlistment, training and participation in war. Just before the troops in Swoff’s Company are sent to Operation: Desert Shield, they’re treated to a screening of Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now”—another film dealing with the psychological effects of war on human beings. I didn’t get the impression that anyone in the audience fully understood the irony here. The soldiers cheer on during the familiar bombast of Wagner’s “Die Walküre: Ritt der Walküren” (Ride of the Valkyries) as the Huey helicopters swarm, on screen, over the rice paddies of Vietnam.

Normally, the director of a film like this would force overt connotations by requiring the characters to find out the ultimate lessons harbored by “Apocalypse”… as well as in a later episode where they gather to watch a taping of “The Deer Hunter” sent by one soldier’s wife. In each case, however, the viewing is cut short by an interruption. This results in the troops never having to actually confront their cognitive dissonance between the works for which they bear misplaced adoration and the allusions made in these films which bespeak the absurdity that awaits them. They’re Jarheads… in the absence of war, as Swoff notes, their lives are devoid of meaning.

I personally relate to this film, having a brother who spent nine long months in the Persian Gulf during Operation: Desert Shield/Storm. It was a different kind of war. The air assaults had pretty much eliminated the need for much ground involvement, but, as the film notes, by the time the ground initiative started, over half a million troops, active duty, guard and reservists, were deployed.. and for what? In addition to coercing the men into signing various kinds of waivers to indemnify the military command structure from, naturally, any idiotic decisions they force upon their enlisted men and women, and coaching the troops on what they can and cannot tell the media, Sgt. Sykes advises his men that they have been asked to liberate “those poor Kuwaitis.” I wonder, does the average American know that, around that time, Kuwait was the wealthiest nation on the planet with the highest per-capita income? Suffice it to say, there’s a scene where the soldiers find themselves smothered in oil.

Swofford observes, “The earth is bleeding.” …and humanity with it.

Jarhead • Dolby® Digital surround sound in select theatres • Running Time: 123 minutes • MPAA Rating: R for pervasive language, some violent images and strong sexual content. • Distributed by Universal Pictures