Essential Killing

Poland

Eagle Entertainment

R4 DVD

English, Polish, Arabic with English subtitles

Although the producers tried to reduce the political content of this film, there are some parts that must be political in order for the story to make sense. Many viewers will not progress past this part, and they will miss a great film.

A Taliban member in Afghanistan is taken prisoner after he kills three Americans with a rocket propelled grenade. Deafened by the blast he is unable to answer his interrogators’ questions and is “waterboarded”, a form of torture now known to have been used by the U.S. military. He would not be able to tell them much anyway. From flashbacks to his time before the Taliban it looks like he was simply hoodwinked into “fighting for Allah” by the words of a rabid Muslim cleric.

He is flown to an unknown location in middle Europe for transfer to a prison camp. On the way to the camp the vehicle crashes and he escapes into the snowy mountain wastes. The rest of the film covers his flight to …where? He has no idea where he is or where to go. He is in an unfamiliar environment, starving, lonely and hunted by the military. He doesn’t know the language so can’t ask for help or even for his location. The mountains in winter are largely unpopulated anyway. Along the way he is forced to kill to survive, although he appears to have been basically an ethical man before the Taliban.

The film is a little handicapped by the way the lead actor is set up. Vincent Gallo does not speak a word throughout the film and we don’t see much of his face either, since it is covered with a bushy beard. He must do the best he can with body language, and that he does well. Conditions for him were unpleasant. In the mountains he had to walk barefoot through snow in temperatures as low as –35 degrees.

The story starts out vaguely, with his reasoning for joining the Taliban left rather uncertain. It finished vaguely, too, with nothing extra revealed or decided – it is simply his survival that the film focuses on. This brings up the film’s only real weakness. The Director dwells lovingly on each scene to the point where it makes the film drag a little. Watching a man walk across a snowy clearing and enter the trees is OK, but extended close-ups of his bushy beard are not really necessary. It could have been edited a little tighter and about fifteen minutes cut out to keep it moving. Otherwise it is a good story beautifully filmed.

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