Bureau Recommends: Fighting on the Frontline
Defending some corner of a foreign field.
Not strictly investigative, but Channel 4’s excellent ‘Fighting on the Frontline’ is a must see. A decade into the British Army’s involvement in Afghanistan this warts-and-all film followed a troop of wart hog (a type of armoured vehicle) British soldiers over a number of weeks.
The end result was both a beautifully shot film and a powerful insight into the world of war.
The producer/director Robin Barnwell captured the mixture of fear, adrenalin, boredom, immaturity and aggression that is the sum of any young soldier’s life on the frontline. The sentiments captured in this one hour film were timeless.
Mr Barnwell’s skill lay in his lightness of touch capturing events – the trivial was juxtaposed against the enormity of losing a friend in war. The jocularity of a commander driving his troops through a river stopped in its tracks when an IED exploded, killing one of their troop. A worried phone call home to a mother was heard over two soldiers slow dancing to a ballad.
What makes this a film worth watching for its journalistic potential, though, is that it shows how hard the battle is still being fought in Afghanistan, how dislocated from life in Britain the fighting is and how soldiers are facing death daily in distant fields.
Whatever your view of the conflict, this film is a must for anyone who wants to understand the realities on the ground for British troops.
The film can be watched here.
