Alone In Survival, With The World Cheering Him On
Samm Sack
Co-Editor
After the majority of decent war films I’ve seen in theaters, the room usually bursted into applause when the end credits came on.
“The Lone Survivor”, directed by Peter Burg, left the theater dead silent.
And as the viewers filed out of the room, a few mumbled praises for the movie while others were on the verge of weeping.
“The Lone Survivor” is based on a true story, an eyewitness account of the mission called Operation Redwing that occured in June of 2005. Almost nine years later, the event is being replayed on the big screen:
After extensive planning and training, Marcus Luttrell (Mark Wahlberg) and his team of four men set out on a mission to not only capture but also kill the notorious Ahmad Shahd, a member of al Qaeda who had already slaughtered several American troops. Despite their strategies, a string of unplanned events left Marcus and his team to fight for their lives in what was considered “one of the most valiant efforts of modern warfare.”
If you can take the gore of it all, it is really a life-changing film. It stuck with me for days afterward and I kept thinking about everything that made it so memorable. It was unlike any war film I had ever seen, most likely because it felt like I was a part of the action. I went through Navy Seal training right along side them, struggling through every trial the trainers could throw at me and cheering when I finally made it to the end. My heart stopped with fear when things during their mission went wrong, and I felt the desperation and eventual acceptance of hopelessness just as the soldiers did.
Even though I marveled at their strength, I knew I would never in a thousand years be able to “just shove some dirt in it” if I ever got shot in the stomach. Hobbling along with shrapnel carved into my leg would be an impossibility.
Yet they did it.
The title hinted to the audience that the least sought after ending was to be reality; of the main characters portrayed on the mission, there would only be one remaining by the end of the credits. The inevitability of that looming fact did nothing to keep the audience from growing attached to the jaunty, charismatic and comical men that were rendered to a dismal death.
The actors did a fabulous job reenacting not only the determination most Navy Seal soldiers must carry within, but also the expressive personality that separated each man into his own person. The audience wasn’t given a falsehood when it walked into the theater; it didn’t show hardened men with no fears and no emotions. Instead, it portrayed a husband debated on home decor with his wife and a fiance struggled over whether to buy his girlfriend a horse for a wedding gift. The soldiers were tough, taking bullets and scratches and almost-fatal blows to the head every other minute, but there was an underlying softness to each man.
That tenderness was truly what connected the viewers to the actors on the screen.
Not to spoil the already-foreshadowed ending, the most depressing scene was after the movie was finished: pictures, memories and stories flashed across the screen during the credits. Walking out of the theater, I can promise I wasn’t the only one that was about to shed a tear. Just about everyone around me was either dead silent or about to burst with emotion.
The ending left a hole in me that I craved to fill with different emotions. I tried to shove sympathy in a part of it, remorse and anger in another part.
But of course, I ended up having to pack the wound with a metaphorical, but very suiting, clump of dirt.
