In the valley of Elah

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Movie
German title In the valley of Elah
Original title In the Valley of Elah
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 2007
length 122 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Paul Haggis
script Paul Haggis,
Mark Boal
production Laurence Becsey ,
Darlene Caamano ,
Paul Haggis,
Steve Samuels ,
Patrick Wachsberger
music Mark Isham
camera Roger Deakins
cut Jo Francis
occupation

In the Valley of Elah (Original title: In the Valley of Elah ) is an American drama from 2007 . Directed by Paul Haggis , who wrote the screenplay based on a report by Mark Boal . The main roles were played by Tommy Lee Jones and Charlize Theron .

action

When the soldier Mike Deerfield returned to the USA from an eleven-month Iraq mission , he did not report back to his base after an exit ( AWOL ). His aging father, war veteran Hank Deerfield, goes on a search. He comes across a broken mobile phone that his son has left behind at his military base and finds someone who can largely restore the Iraq photos and - little by little - videos of his son stored on it. One picture in particular attracts Deerfield's attention without him finding out anything about the background of the photo. Otherwise, however, he achieves nothing, because neither at the military base nor in the surrounding area does anyone want to know anything about Mike's whereabouts.

The search only moves when the police find mutilated and burned human remains, which are identified as the remains of the son. The military declares that they are responsible for the case because of the location and sees parallels to murders in the drug environment. The military police are responsible for the investigation. But Hank Deerfield believes in the innocence of his son and suspects the military of trying to cover up the murder and its background. He is able to convince the young criminal investigator Emily Sanders by means of traces at the scene of the crime that the body was pulled from the roadside onto the military compound, whereby the case falls under the jurisdiction of the local police. He contributes further observations to the investigation. Sanders' little son David, the Christian Deerfield tells the story of the biblical David who conquered the giant Goliath in the valley of Elah to teach his son courage.

But the advice and values ​​of Hank Deerfield are being questioned by the younger generations: Little David may seem deeply impressed by the Goliath story, but the mutual lesson does not last long. Above all, however, in the context of the investigation into the murder case, Deerfield learns more than just the truth he is looking for: From the video fragments that he gradually receives and from testimony from his son's comrades, he hears about drugs and visits to table dance bars together , of the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners, the mockery of corpses and a loss of all moral sense and decency and the total brutalization of the soldiers. A comrade of his son of Mexican descent had enlisted in the army after a drug offense to avoid jail time. Another hangs himself in his cell, with Mike Deerfield's watch found in his pocket. While the exemplary picture that the father had made of his son gradually dissolves, repeated interviews of Mike's comrades in a quiet atmosphere bring to light the banal solution to the murder case: irrelevant quarrels, alcohol and other drugs have led to one the returnees from Iraq killed Mike; two other comrades helped with the removal and dismemberment of the body. They then ate at a fast food restaurant and paid with Mike's credit card.

Finally, Hank Deerfield learns from another soldier's story the meaning of the photo from Iraq that caught his eye. At the beginning of his time in Iraq, Mike Deerfield had knocked down a child who ran into the Humvee . During the operation, the soldiers were instructed not to brake if something got in front of their car out of fear of ambushes. After the deployment, he called his father from the camp in Iraq and told him that something terrible had happened and that he wanted to go home: "Get me out of here". Mike couldn't describe the fatal act openly on the phone. Hank Deerfield weighed it down and showed only a general understanding of war problems. Unaware of the son's real dismay, Deerfield, a tough ex-military sergeant, advised his son to persevere, leaving it open as to whether the father could have helped in any other way.

When Deerfield Sr. returned home, he flipped a US flag that his son had sent him from Iraq - a traditional signal for an emergency or as an indication of the state of the nation.

Reviews

Roger Ebert wrote in the Chicago Sun-Times on September 14, 2007 that the film worked so well because it was based on Tommy Lee Jones 'role-play ( "is built on Tommy Lee Jones' persona, and that is why it works so well" ). The same act could have seemed banal or routine for another lead actor. Ebert compared the line-up to an orchestra in which Jones set the tone, while other actors like Susan Sarandon, Charlize Theron and Jason Patric would follow him.

The magazine Entertainment Weekly wrote that the film was first a kind of " whodunit " and thematizing later, the war issue.

Film-Dienst 5/2008 wrote that the film was "ostensibly a crime film in a military environment" and that it used the genre framework "to articulate the shocks of a nation" . It is "a committed film about a character who sees their nationalist-military ideas in question" .

David Denby wrote in New York on 24 December 2007 on a "heart-wrenching performance" ( "heartbreaking performance" ) of Tommy Lee Jones. A film with "anger and fear in the heart," said Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian . Richard Schickel on Time on September 14, 2007: "A sad, subtle and very good film" .

Ain't It Cool News discussed a film that as a viewer would like to "scream out loud" at times.

Rüdiger Suchsland : “The soldiers return as killer machines and in extreme cases kill their families. [...] who is David here - the son, the Iraqis, the father? - who Goliath? "

Shawn Levy wrote in the Portland Oregonian : "We should think about what we are actually asking these young people to do when duty calls."

Critic.de: “Shortly before the end of the film they are back, the dreaded Haggis parallel montages that put together what does not belong together. Here the film is no longer satisfied with the Iraq images from the mobile phone camera and to top it all off, the soundtrack contains the most unbearable film song of the cinema year so far. "

Awards

Paul Haggis won the SIGNIS Award at the 2007 Venice Film Festival and was also nominated for the Golden Lion . Leading actor Tommy Lee Jones was nominated for the 2007 Satellite Awards . In 2008 he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor and for the London Critics Circle Film Award .

The German Film and Media Assessment FBW in Wiesbaden awarded the film the rating particularly valuable.

backgrounds

The director originally wanted to cast the role of Hank Deerfield with Clint Eastwood , but he turned it down.

The film was shot in Albuquerque ( New Mexico ), Whiteville ( Tennessee ) and Morocco . It was screened on September 10, 2007 at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival and screened on September 1, 2007 at the 2007 Venice Film Festival , which opened on August 29 . The screening at the Spanish San Sebastián Film Festival followed on September 22, 2007 . The film opened in cinemas in the USA on September 28, 2007 and in Germany on March 6, 2008. In the USA, it grossed around 6.8 million US dollars .

The film is named after the valley in which, according to the biblical first book Samuel 17.2 NIV, the young David conquered the giant Goliath (English: Valley of Elah , Luther translation Eichgrund , Elberfelder and standard translation Terebinthental ).

The plot is based on the fate of SPC. Richard T. Davis, who was found dismembered and charred on his return to the United States in 2003 near Columbus , Georgia , and whose remains showed evidence of at least 32 knife wounds. Two of his comrades were found guilty of murder, one pleaded guilty for manslaughter, and another confessed to covering up.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for In the Valley of Elah . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , February 2008 (PDF; test number: 113 062 K).
  2. ↑ a b Mark Boal: Death and Dishonor. (No longer available online.) In: Playboy . May 2004, archived from the original on October 13, 2007 ; accessed on June 6, 2008 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.playboy.com
  3. ^ Film review by Roger Ebert , accessed March 17, 2008.
  4. ↑ www.ew.com , accessed August 30, 2007.
  5. ↑ David Denby : Soldiers. In: The New Yorker . December 24, 2007, accessed June 6, 2008 .
  6. ^ Peter Bradshaw: In the Valley of Elah. In: The Guardian . January 25, 2008, accessed on April 2, 2009 (English): "real anger and fear at its heart."
  7. ^ Richard Schickel: In the Valley of Elah: Sad, Subtle and Moving. In: Time . September 14, 2007, accessed May 16, 2008 .
  8. ↑ Capone: Capone thinks IN THE VALLEY OF ELAH is Paul Haggis' most accomplished work !!! In: Ain't It Cool News. September 14, 2007, accessed on April 2, 2009 (English): "At times, ELAH might make you want to scream out"
  9. ↑ Rüdiger Suchsland: In the valley of Elah in Artechock .
  10. ↑ Shawn Levy: In the Valley of Elah. In: Portland Oregonian. Retrieved on April 2, 2009 (English, according to Metacritic ): "forces us to consider just what it is we ask of young people who answer the call to duty"
  11. ↑ Lukas Foerster: In the valley of Elah on Critic.de .
  12. ^ Filming locations for In the Valley of Elah , accessed August 30, 2007.
  13. ↑ In the Valley of Elah's premiere dates , accessed March 17, 2008.
  14. ↑ Box office results for In the Valley of Elah , accessed March 17, 2008.
  15. ↑ Michael Cieply: While Real Bullets Fly, Movies Bring War Home. In: The New York Times . July 26, 2007, accessed June 6, 2008 .