sad irony

Rating: 9/10 (22 January 2013)

"The Hurt Locker" was best known as the first Best Picture winner directed by a woman, but it deserves more analysis than that. The movie chillingly focuses on an EOD team in Iraq. The hand-held cinematography masterfully heightens the tension throughout the movie. If the movie has any real problem, it's that it doesn't directly criticize the US presence in Iraq. It focuses more on the the situation in which the EOD team constantly finds itself as it goes about its business. There are some really unpleasant scenes.
A sad irony is that Kathryn Bigelow went on to direct "Zero Dark Thirty", which apparently justifies torture by incorrectly depicting that torture led to the capture and execution of Osama bin Laden. We all agree that the world is better off without Osama bin Laden, but knowingly lying about what happened weakens your case, especially since torture produced some of the false evidence that Colin Powell used in his infamous speech at the UN ten years ago.
But on its own, "The Hurt Locker" is a very good movie. It was a real treat that Bigelow won Best Director over her former husband James Cameron (whose "Avatar" was apparently an excuse for nonstop CGI).