Triage

Plot synopsis:
Set in 1988, Mark Walsh (Colin Farrell) is a photojournalist who has earned a reputation for working in some of the most unforgiving locations on Earth. When his editor Amy (Juliet Stevenson) asks him to cover Saddam Hussein's campaign against the Kurds, Mark takes the assignment and thinks little of it. His wife Elena (Paz Vega) is considerably more concerned. Mark and his friend and fellow photographer David (Jamie Sives) head off to the war full of confidence. Mark takes photographs of brutally injured soldiers and of a doctor who shoots them dead to spare their suffering. Later on, Mark is seen mildly injured in what he claims to be an accident in the river and he then comes home alone after being separated from David. Elena notices that he is like a different person, gaunt and unable to relax.
Elena can't get Mark to talk about what he saw that left him so traumatized, so she invites her grandfather Joaquin (Christopher Lee), a veteran psychoanalyst with military experience, for a visit to see if he can help. Joaquin struggles to get Mark to open up. The grandfather's presence ignites an old conflict between him and Elena; the doctor was a supporter of Franco during the Spanish Civil War. He had helped Franco's soldiers recover from the guilt of the atrocities they had committed in warfare. Elena had never been able to forgive him for his actions.
The second half of the film depicts Joaquin's patient persistence in getting Mark to face his own memories. Joaquin is particularly curious as to why Mark is more concerned with bringing bodies back to their families rather than survival or death. While Mark is drawing a picture of the area he and David were situated, Diane (Kelly Reilly), David's pregnant wife and Elena enter the apartment and Joaquin tells him he has to come clean with what happened. A flashback reveals that Mark followed David when he decided to leave early. While walking back to the Kurdish camp, they were shelled, which resulted in David losing both of his legs. Mark tried to carry him back.
After he tells them this story, Diane begins labour, and is taken to the hospital, where she delivers a baby girl. Mark, Elena, and Joaquin visit Diane in the hospital. Unable to tell Diane the "end of the story," Mark walks up to the roof and considers jumping. Joaquin and Elena follow him and he tells them that he had jumped in a river with David's arms wrapped around his neck and that once in the water, he could no longer breathe. He released David from his grip and let him go. He tearfully admits that he felt guilty about not bringing him home. Elena embraces him and the film ends with Plato's quote: "Only the dead see the end of the war."

Tags: psychological, flashback

Review:
TRIAGE is a well chosen title for this film about who survives an who dies in war: at times those triage decisions are made by serendipity (read 'bad luck'), at times they are made by physicians or medics tending the wounded on the battlefield, and at times they are submerged in the apparent 'survivors' only to later crush the life from those who make it home.
Writer/Director Danis Tanovic has adapted Scott Anderson's novel is a manner that carries the seemingly simple act of 'triage' throughout the film, showing how that action can affect the lives of friends, family, and psychological wholeness of the victim.
Mark Walsh (Colin Farrell, in yet another powerful role) and his buddy David (Jamie Sives) are war photographers for a newspaper edited by Amy (Juliet Stevenson).
Their current assignment is Kurdistan and the terrifying realities they not only experience but also commit to film are of such a horrid nature that they both are in shock: they not only witness killings and landmine explosion deaths, but they also watch one Dr. Talani (Branko Djuric) triage the wounded, deciding who can survive care and who is so near death that they are put aside to be later 'executed' by Dr. Talani in a compassionate gesture to end their futile suffering.
The tension is so great that David decides to return home, leaving Mark to carry on the assignment.
Mark returns home to his adoring Elena (Paz Vega), presents his photographs to Amy, and begins to heal: David's wife Diane (Kelly Reilly) is due to deliver their first child in two weeks and has had no word from David.
This is another powerful anti-war film, this time as seen through the eyes of a non-combatant observer.
The next thing we see is a wounded Mark (Colin Farrell) and we don't know what happened to David.The rest of the film takes place in Ireland, sort of.
It moves back and forth from scenes of Mark's life as the traumatized husband of a beautiful woman who feels locked out by his shell-shocked remoteness, and Mark's various wartime memories, as he describes them to his wife's grandfather, a therapist who once treated war criminals.
The therapist starts to figure out from the threads of Mark's different stories what might have happened to David.
If the movie passes this test, I think it can be safely said that everyone's time, the film crew's time and the audience's time has been used to a good effect.Before seeing it, I knew that the movie was about a photographer going to the war zone.
Not to digress too far, Colin Farrel's character in the movie and his best friend are off to Kurdistan to capture with their cameras yet another offensive in the two centuries long history of warfare in that country.
It is this lack of choice and the bravery with which ordinary men like Dr Talzani and Cristopher Lee's character face it that form important aspects of this anti-war film that is so much more than that.
As for Mark Walsh (Colin Farrel), his drama is taken to the extreme, probably the extremest I've seen on film recently.
As for the comment about the relationship between characters being strained and used solely for the purpose of delivering big lines, I must say that I did not detect that strain while watching the movie and though it may be because of the poor sound quality of the pirated copy, I'm more inclined to attribute it to Tanovic's habit of using dialogue as if he was staging a play and not directing a film.
To those who call him an amateur, Tanovic so far worked with Katrin Cartlidge, Miki Manojlovic, Emannuele Beart, Branko Djuric, Colin Farrel, is friends with great film-makers such as Mike Leigh, made his three feature films in three different languages and won positive acclaim at big international film festivals.
There were quite a few moments of light humour that were enjoyed and the Q&A session revealed that a lot of people truly were touched by the movie.Next, let me say that the story was quite powerful.
It would be hard not to be emotionally effected by this film, and it would be hard not to leave with something to think about.Unfortunately, a great story and a great character don't make for a great movie.
While many of the scenes were spectacular and a lot of the dialogue worked quite well, on a whole the film didn't do its story justice.
In fact, if you've watched enough war films you'll probably find that this movie WAS the subplot to many of those films.
The dialogue and the delivery is just spot on.And when you watch Christopher Lee going one-on-one with Colin Farrell, you just wish there could have been more scenes, with those two together.
There is this constant pushing and delivering, that makes those scenes special.But of course, the rest of the movie is not lacking in tension and/or good performances.
This movie is basically about how even a photojournalist(Colin Farrell) who is a vet at taking pictures of war and death can be traumatized.
The story starts off with a very ambitious journalist and photographer that sees the horrors of war with his partner and best friend.
As a teenager, Elena (Paz Vega) hated her grandfather (Christopher Lee) because he was a "fascist." He treated the fascist leaders after the Spanish War. His explanation of why he did so was most interesting, and showed him to possibly be a great psychiatrist.She called upon him to treat her war photographer boyfriend (Colin Farrell) after he returned from Kurdistan and was undergoing leg paralysis that was psychosomatic.
Their exchanges as Mark (Farrell) relived his war experiences were fascinating, as were Dr. Morales' soliloquies.The film was excellent in showing the cost of war is far higher than the dollars and cents we spend to fight them.
this is the third of the 2009 Colin Farrell movies which I have recently following on from Doctor Parnassus and Crazy Heart but this surely is his finest acting performance in a movie to date.There are many movies of course about war and more recently about Iraq.
this is not really an Iraq war story but Colin Farrell does play as a war journalist in Kurdistan and returns from there with a trauma wjhich engrosses the main story of the film.the film title of TRIAGE is a strange one and requires looking up as to meaning before or after watching the movie.
the context of TRIAGE within the movie occurs as i recall in only one actual scene of the film when the Kurdistani Doctor is seen having to play 'God' in order to decide who lives and dies.Like the American movie 'Brothers', somebody returns from a war-torn drama with a psychological trauma and with a story to tell which is not what the folks back home are expecting.
Farrells acting performance is spot on all the way and there are one or two graphic scenes in the film, one near the end, which will definitely make you flinch and probably weep.overall this is not a powerful film like The Hurt Locker and I disagree with the earlier comment about the Grandfather.
He clearly has an important part to play in the movie and Farrell links to all the main characters effortlessly.Okay it was not filmed in Kurdistan for whatever reason and Kurdistani actors/extra may or may not have been used.Despite the graphic scenes, I commend this movie for viewing.
It is not top notch but it is certainly entertaining.Would have liked to have seen more focus on the concept of the film title and exploration of issues relating to triage rather than the story which eventually evolved between the character of mark Walsh (Farrell) and his best friend David.
I really doubt many people will watch the movie and know what TRIAGE means.Not on general release anywhere I understand, privileged to watch it on good quality DVD..
A traumatized war photo-journalist, returns home from kurdistan, taking the pictures more that he can hoard.
To be honest this movie seems as it is well behind its time, in moments i felt like it was 80's film.
Specialist, low-budget, low-key but praise-able Colin Farrell stars in this tough, low budget British war film, as an army photographer right in the thick of Iraqi fighting war-zones.
War photographer Mark Walsh (Colin Farrell) is in Kurdistan with best friend David.
Mark is eager to join the expected Peshmerga offensive but David is desperate to go home to his pregnant wife Diane (Kelly Reilly).
Mark is deteriorating and Elena calls in her psychologist grandfather Joaquín Morales (Christopher Lee) for help.
This Movie has an unsettling Tone and some very Graphic War Imagery.Add to its Depressing Battlefield Carnage, the Main Focus of the Film is the Psychological or PTSD of a Photojournalist, played with a Believable Sorrow by Colin Farrell, and is a Well Crafted, Layered Story that weaves through Flashbacks all that is the Source of His Pain.This one never got a Standard Release and went Straight to Video and is a virtually unknown Work that is Striking, Powerful, and Memorable.
This is Typical of the way this Excellent Film unfolds in Unconventional ways and it delivers some Style that does not Intrude on its Message.This is Very Far from a Good Time at the Movies and is best approached as a Serious Philosophical Drama with none of the Trappings that make for an Easy Approach.
Slow start, but then enters wise man Christopher Lee. Triage is a term used for humanity killing of a seriously wounded.
Colin Farrell puts in a good performance, but its the pace of the movie that lets it down.
I was good to see Christopher Lee back on screen and when the whole story unfolds, it wasn't too bad, but the director chose to use the suspense element which was quite a bad choice.
I understand that its was supposed to be a psychological drama that was based on the traumatic effect of what Farrell witnessed in Kurdistan, which is why I decided to give the movie a chance in the first place, but I still struggled to to keep my eyes open.
In all, its not the type of film that I would be watching again any time soon.I recommend this movie to people who into there psychological dramas based on the experience of a journalist in the Middle East.
The story is about two friends who go to war-torn Kurdistan and leave behind their wives one of which is very pregnant.
When one (Colin Farrell) returns home, the horrifying details of his friend's fate are gradually eased out from the scarred and traumatised photographer by an elderly Spanish doctor (Christopher Lee).As the two men share their respective experiences in Spain and Kurdistan, a tentative trust and rapport is built up between them and the soul-destroying facts of what actually happened in Kurdistan can gradually be acknowledged.
Never before have I seen the charismatic Farrell turn in a performance of such note.Director Danis Tanovic confirms the huge promise that he exhibited with 'No Man's Land' and has with this movie created a searing masterpiece that, like the aforementioned 2001 movie, is undoubtedly significantly informed by his time spent filming in Sarajevo for the Bosnian Army.
'Triage' is indeed a worthy addition to the pantheon of great anti- war movies and it deserves to be sought out and seen by as many cinema lovers as possible..
Mark and David, two photographers following the conflict in Kurdistan, experience things they probably did not take into consideration before getting involved in that war.
The truth finally comes out, as we watch in horror the odyssey he went through with David.Directed by Danis Tanovic, "Triage", is an exercise in survival while being in the worst possible situations.
Based on Scott Anderson's novel, which we have not read, the film makes a case on the horrors of a war which Mark experienced.
Mark's is guilt ridden for a secret he is not ready to share with anyone.Colin Farrell gives one of the most intense performances of his career, under Mr. Tanovic's inspired direction.
The great Christopher Lee shows up as Elena's grandfather, a man that has seen war first hand, and has suffered for his involvement.
The front story with the shrink in-law (Christopher Lee) treating the shell-shocked war zone photojournalist (Colin Farrell) for PTSD ranges in tone from forced to overly simple (with an ending reminiscent of someone just pressing the "EASY" button at Staples), but the back story flashbacks are powerful enough to make up for any deficiencies in the back-home-in-Europe part of the flick.
I had sir Christopher Lee in my heart as one of my favorite actors but after watching this movie i can undoubtfully say that he is my favorite actor , he made this film epic with his talent and quality.
There is one thing that I am sure of and that is that there will not be an actor so talented and legendary as sir Christopher Lee. He is 1st seen in the film after a quite big amount of time but he then gives the film an end that is thrilling .
This movie has good parts, but at the end if i had to pin the bad it is the way the story was put together.
shell shocked or triage in America came 2009 this film is 1h 39min of a | Drama, Mystery, War set in Kurdistan and Ireland i gave it 7/10 The wife of a photojournalist sets out to discover why he came home from a recent assignment without his colleague.
Director:Danis Tanovic sets a Excellent Psychological War Drama with a mystery element Colin Farrell's character is outstanding .best fiends mark and David played by James sives are two expert at war photographers sent to war torn Kurdistan highly ambitious mark is intentent on pursuing the fighting in search of the ultimate shot but David has enough living amongst such brutality and leaves to go home to a wife who is pregnant mark returns home battered and bruised he is surprised to learn David has not yet made it back exhausted and ill he tries in vain to hide his physical and psychological wounds his uncharacteristically strange behavior prompts wife Elena (vega)to enlist the help of her grandfather straight talking Spanish psychiatrist( lee) who worked with treating fascists after they committed atrocities in the civil war uncovering the painful truth it soon becomes clear that mark holds the key to the real reaason behind David disappearance written and directed by the director who done no mans land .shell shock Ir triage is a gripping story about war shooting and explosions and killings.
At the age of 86, actor Christopher Lee had to learn more lines of dialogue for his role in "Triage" than for any other film he has done before.
It's not often an author pulls of a great adaptation, but judging from the film, he sure did here Rated R for war violence, disturbing images, language, brief sexuality and nudity Mark and David are best friends, photo journalists going from war to war.
Dark Tale About War. Triage is a film about a dark tale of a photojournalist who comes home after a dangerous assignment in Kurdistan during the Anfal Genocide against the Kurdish people.Mark Walsh is a photojournalist who has earned a reputation for working in some of the most unforgiving locations on Earth, so when his editor Amy asks him to cover the fighting in Kurdistan, Mark takes the assignment and thinks little of it, though his wife Elena is considerably more concerned.
Mark and his friend and fellow photographer David head off to the war full of confidence, but when Mark comes home alone after being separated from David, he seems like a different person, gaunt and unable to relax.
But as Joaquin struggles to get Mark to open up, the grandfather's presence ignites an old conflict between him and Elena; the doctor was a supporter of Franco during the Spanish Civil War and served under the dictator's regime, and Elena has never been able to forgive him for his actions against the Spanish loyalists.The movie stars Colin Farrell,Paz Vega and Christopher Lee together with Kelly Reilly,Branko Đurić and Jamie Sives.It is based on the novel Triage by American veteran war correspondent Scott Anderson, and it is written and directed by Danis Tanović.Triage is about a person's war experience.The cast was brilliant but their performances aren't enough to make this a compelling and powerful film.
Colin Farrell was good enough as Mark Walsh but he wasn't great in this highly complex role that was enough to really generate the sympathy of the viewer.It could have been an excellent film considering the relevance of the theme involved but it the cast weren't enough to elevate it into a classic film..
There are some powerful, emotional moments that, though everything has been shown before in war, scratch some new surface and find some new wounds.All the things that worked really well though are in constant balance with the kinda vague and unexplored emotional moments that push so much of the plot along.For example, after the explosion is finally revealed, and we learn Mark has been lying about what happened while in-country, the first question I wanted his wife to ask was where's David?
She's shown interest in helping find David behind Mark's back, and this is the big question hanging over the story, yet she doesn't ask.
I feel like the director was probably too close to it to see where his screenplay wasn't working.The grandfather interactions and the war story vignettes.
And that's an important relationship in the story, as Mark can't move on without her forgiveness or closure.In the end I couldn't identify with the main character emotionally unless he was talking in flashback; there his reflections were visualized, and allowed us to experience his conflict with him.