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вЂњFrom the moment he entered the public eye people claimed him.вЂќ The remarkable irony of The Tillman Story is how different Tillman the man was from the gung-ho poster-boy of the popular imagination. вЂњThe film ended up being equal parts who Pat Tillman was and who we as a society needed him to be,вЂќ says Bar-Lev.

He focuses on the events that followed TillmanвЂ™s death, and the way the American government, media, and citizenry willfully elect fiction over fact when it comes to understanding war.

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вЂњBy trip number two or three,вЂќ says Junger, вЂњI think the guys just decided, вЂOkay, you guys arenвЂ™t going away.вЂ™вЂќ In turn, that trust and staying power affords audiences unprecedented access to men at war, and makes Restrepo a landmark in embedded filmmaking.ДЄlthough The Tillman Story investigates and retraces the events surrounding the death of Pat Tillman-he soldier and former professional football player who was killed by friendly fire while serving in Afghanistan in 2004-Amir Bar-Lev carries the somewhat familiar narrative much further.

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By stubbornly returning to the most dangerous valley in Afghanistan, knowing full well the dangers that awaited them, veteran war correspondents Junger and Hetherington, making their first feature film, won the trust of habitually press-shy soldiers. They bunked at a camp that received daily fire, endured ambushes and IED explosions, and suffered various injuries. Minus the handling of artillery, the filmmakers lived the life of solders. For young men engaged in a constant battle for survival, political context is literally beside the point.

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So once you think of the movie in those terms, a lot of things fall by the wayside.вЂќ Junger and Hetherington not only decided against interviewing generals, politicians, and experts, they strictly limited their footage to men on the ground in the Korengal, offering the viewer no escape from the stark reality of combat. вЂњAs if the viewer were there and were a soldier. вЂњWe wanted the camera to be a surrogate for the viewer,вЂќ says Junger. But by shearing away all extraneous information and tightly focusing on the day-to-day, hour-by-hour struggle of American soldiers in the Korengal Valley, directors Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger arrive at a document of pure experience, thrusting the viewer into an unrelenting battle for survival and sanity. About one platoon filmed over a single year in a single, singularly violent valley in Afghanistan, the film would seem to be an unlikely vessel for discussions of universality. In some ways Restrepo couldnвЂ™t be more circumscribed. Beneath their reportage and veritГ© footage are thoughtful inquiries into cultural mythologies that continue to influence the ways in which we view and interpret the world. These are three films for our time, but like the notions of conflict, struggle, and resilience that they explore, they are also timeless. If modern war remains an abstract concept to many Americans-battles are fought overseas and media coverage is now only a fraction of what it was when the current conflicts began-these documentaries are powerful correctives, reaching out to American audiences through deeply intimate, universally relatable narratives.Д®ach combines a dogged pursuit of documentary veracity with classic storytelling, marshalling the forces of drama and character to make compelling, engaging films. For all their differences, these three films-Sebastian Junger and Tim HetheringtonвЂ™s Restrepo, Amir Bar-LevвЂ™s The Tillman Story and Laura PoitrasвЂ™s The Oath-represent an evolution of the contemporary war documentary.Д®ight years after the beginning of the conflict in Afghanistan and nearly seven years after the invasion of Iraq, none of these films concern themselves with questions over the wisdom or justifications for these missions, and instead focus on the complex realities of whatвЂ™s happened since. Three documentaries in this yearвЂ™s Festival approach AmericaвЂ™s overseas conflicts from very different angles, yet at heart they are all stories about the human costs of war. A still from Sebastian Junger and Tim HetheringtonвЂ™s вЂRestrepo.вЂ™

Real war documentaries