Average Rating: 7.6/10
Reviews Counted: 43
Fresh: 39 | Rotten: 4
Average Rating: 7/10
Critic Reviews: 7
Fresh: 6 | Rotten: 1
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Average Rating: 3.8/5
User Ratings: 2,152
ARMADILLO is an astute exploration of the culture of war. Director Janus Metz follows Danish soldiers fighting the Taliban in the Helmand province of southern Afghanistan with sophisticated visual artistry rarely achieved under such raw conditions. Building his film around the characters within the platoon, Metz allows us to witness how war transforms the different personalities, and the group, approaching his subjects with an intimacy equal to that of fiction. The active military base "Armadillo" houses a mix of 170 Danish and British soldiers in the ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) who are responsible for providing security to the surrounding area and eliminating the Taliban insurgency. Metz follows his subjects through an entire tour of duty, creating an unforgettable portrait of the reality of military life on the front lines. Documenting both the boredom and horror of warfare, Metz shows us the soldiers playing video games and laughing at pornography, struggling to communicate with disillusioned civilians, and killing a group of Taliban soldiers found hiding in a trench. The film avoids judgments for or against the war, and instead shows the soldiers struggling to maintain their humanity in a world filled with violence.-- (c) New Yorker
Apr 15, 2011 Limited
$10.3k
New Yorker
All Critics (45) | Top Critics (7) | Fresh (39) | Rotten (4)
The movie's strength and audacity comes from the Danish soldiers, who confront civilians with wariness or bluntness, exalt in their victories and hesitantly exhibit fear in each others' company.
There's little new in "Armadillo."
A mesmerizing, beautiful and terrifying documentary that can stand among the greatest war movies ever made.
You emerge shaken and bothered, which may sound like a reason not to see the movie. It is actually the opposite.
While much of Armadillo echoes last year's Restrepo, the unprecedented access of director Janus Metz and cameraman Lars Skree reveals the alternating waves of frontline tedium and terror with fresh immediacy.
Aficionados of the first-person format will be salivating over the footage captured by Metz and his cinematographer Lars Skree.
Armadillo is a harsh, honest document about men at war - any war.
...a mostly new twist to consider the Allies who support the U.S. effort - if it is heartbreaking for American families to send their youth to war in Iraq and Afghanistan, imagine how it must feel for the Danes.
A must-see for those not afraid of seeing and hearing a true statement of the horrors of war.
War doc sets itself apart with skilled storytelling
Metz captures and weaves together striking images with great craft. The actual hell of an actual war has never been so beautifully rendered.
You may be sick of war films about Afghanistan by now, but Armadillo's boldly objective take on the situation shouldn't be missed.
The film doesn't sit in judgment, but it does broaden our understanding of what's happening behind enemy lines - and behind the headlines.
Made with the visual polish and dramatic intensity of a fictional feature, Armadillo is a significant addition to the documentaries on the war on terror.
What's interesting about Armadillo's subjects is how differently they and their American counterparts perceive the war...
A chilling documentary about Danish soldiers fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan during their tour of duty.
Facile documentaries like this one, no matter how sincere their intentions may be, don't help the case.
Embeds itself directly into the soldiers' daily lives and reveals all the tedium, cultural hurdles and confusion they struggle with.
More Critic Reviews'Armadillo'. An alarming, eye opening look into a Danish platoon in Afghanistan, leaving me extremely conflicted about the motivations of soldiers.
June 19, 2011"For you its a movie, for them its a reality"Documentary filmmaker Janus Metz and cameraman Lars Skree spent six months following the lives of young soldiers situated less than a kilometer away from Taliban positions.REVIEW As the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have dragged on they have produced an increasing number of provocative war documentaries that have shattered many of the myths about the black-and-white absolutes of war that have often been sold to those on the home front. Armadillo is one of the best films yet produced about the reality of life during a war. The film follows a Danish unit assigned to Helmand Provence in Afghanistan during a 6 months tour. The filmmakers hold nothing back in this intimate portrait of soldiers at war. They present a picture of young men who seem to lose their humanity in the brutal circumstances of war. The visceral picture of combat is harrowing and the filmmakers should be commended for what they have captured on film.A film like Armadillo makes us ask ourselves if this war is worth the human cost that we are paying and what it is doing to the soldiers that we are sending to fight these wars. The film has caused considerable controversy in Denmark.
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