Review: 'Korengal'

They say it over and over — the valley is beautiful, the valley is gorgeous, it reminds you of Colorado, it’s fabulous.

And they also say, “they” want to kill us, “they’re” firing at us, we’re constantly being shot at.

Welcome to the valley of Korengal, Afghanistan, where the U.S. military and the locals are tearing up the beautiful topography, one whizzing bullet at a time.

“Korengal” is journalist Sebastian Junger’s companion piece and not quite sequel to “Restrepo,” his 2010 documentary on the 2nd Platoon, B Company, 2nd Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team of the U.S. Army in the Korangal Valley. Junger and British/American photojournalist Tim Hetherington initially were on assignment for Vanity Fair to cover the U.S. soldiers in the valley, and later went on to make "Restrepo." Hetherington was killed in Libya in 2011 while on assignment and Junger went on to continue his war coverage.

“Korengal” is both Junger’s memorial for Hetherington and a look at the soldiers themselves, their thoughts and feelings as they try to hold down their positions and clear the valley of Taliban and Taliban-allied fighters.

Junger has combined much of the footage shot for “Restrepo” with later interviews and news reports to, as he has said in interviews, help the American public understand what the soldiers are going through. Although compelling at times, “Korengal” doesn’t cover a lot of new ground and basically feels like a recutting of parts of "Restrepo." Much of the same footage is there, some scenes are expanded, some characters better developed. Its main interest is the raw feeling of the interviews and how present the war seems to the interviewees, even though they're primarily being interviewed after the fact, miles and worlds away in Italy.

What Junger has done, in his attempt to create non-political documentary, is put together a piece that will be read in exactly that way — which way your political wind blows will color your view of the documentary.

For some, it will be an intimate portrait of young soldiers who put themselves at daily risk of serious injury or death. For others, after realizing the valley is so remote that the military helicopters in water, that they may well agree with the captain when he says, “ I always wonder why we were in the Korengal Valley…”

Why, indeed?

While the film provides no clear answers beyond the usual we follow orders, there are moments, in the midst of endless dirt, shooting and listless patrolling, and slightly sadistic games to pass the time where the close portraiture become poignant.

Soldiers mourn fallen comrades, realizing it could have been them. An African-American sergeant carefully and gingerly alludes to almost daily battles with racism from his fellow soldiers — although he thinks they’ll want him to stand by them in a firefight… he hopes. Another feels alive among brothers, still another thinks about the fact the soldiers are really the “they,” and that maybe “they” have no business being there.

A grudging respect for the local fighters slowly develops, but still it’s clear that being under constant fire, bored out of their minds by the remoteness, resentful of the local population “messes” with their heads, as one soldier says.

Only one reflects on the moral issues raised by blowing distant people to bits.

"I don't think God will forgive me," he says.

It's a sharp contrast to the cheering that goes on when one soldier explodes his living target. For the rest of his company, they are more concerned with surviving and returning fire. It doesn't appear to occur to them that the Afghans below may be well thinking the same things: I need to protect myself and mine from these people.

“Korengal” is an up-close look at soldiers pinned down in a location, a longish collection of stories intermixed with whizzing bullets and grinding, endless dirt, injuries and makeshift sub-standard structures they have sworn to protect.

And then they are ordered out.

Leaving you wondering why they were there in the first place.

There are many addictions in life, some toxic, like Oxycontin, others more sublime like gorgeous, largely untouched landscapes.

And then there’s war.

While many Americans still cling to the romantic, WWII-era notion of a just war, Junger’s portrait paints a pointless exercise populated by earnest men, many of them surprisingly young — in their early 20s, and yet seemingly aged beyond their years, by the experience.

And when one of them says he would rather be back in Korengal, than at home with his family, you get it, the need for that odd sense of deep fraternity, but with a horrific sense of pity tinged with guilt, because you know we sent him there.

"Korengal" is at the Ken Cinema on Adams for a weeklong run. For showtimes, please see the Ken Cinema website.