Men staring at goats
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Men staring at goats |
| Original title | The Men Who Stare at Goats |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English , Arabic |
| Publishing year | 2009 |
| length | 93 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Grant Heslov |
| script | Peter Straughan |
| production | Grant Heslov, George Clooney , Paul Lister |
| music | Rolfe Kent |
| camera | Robert Elswit |
| cut | Tatiana S. Riegel |
| occupation | |
| |
Men who stare at goats (Original title: The Men Who Stare at Goats ) is an American film satire directed by Grant Heslov from 2009 .
action
Bob Wilton is a journalist for a small Ann Arbor newspaper . In the fall of 2002, he first heard from Lyn Cassady during an interview with a man who claims to have killed his hamster by looking. When his wife separated from him in early 2003, he wanted to prove his manhood to her by going into the Iraq war - as a journalist. But since he cannot work as a so-called “ embedded journalist ”, he is stuck in Kuwait and is looking for a story there. He meets Cassady at his hotel. He sees a drawing of Bob, which resembles a tattoo on Cassady's chest, as a sign of fate. He tells Bob of founded in the 1970s experimental Special Ops New Earth Army of the US Army , whose members " Jedi call" and together with her trainer Bill Django parapsychological should have developed fighting techniques and practiced, including remote viewing , invisibility , pass through walls running or killing animals with just a glance.
Cassady claims he was brought out of retirement and sent on a "secret mission". Wilton cannot hide his skepticism towards Cassady's stories at first. At the same time, however, he also senses a revelation story and sets off with Cassady for the Iraqi desert. An attempt by Cassady to show his psychic powers ends in a car accident. The Americans are kidnapped by three men who come by with a pick-up and are asked for help by Bob. However, Cassady and Wilton managed to free themselves and an Iraqi man and shortly afterwards they were taken away by members of a US security company . When she gets into a shootout with another security company at a gas station, Bob and Lyn flee to his house with the third hostage, Mahmud Daash. However, his family disappeared and the house was ransacked. Nevertheless Daash borrows gratitude for the liberation Cassady and Wilton his car but soon after in the desert by a road - mine is destroyed. Cassady and Wilton drag themselves on, injured, but desperate due to the great drought. Lyn believes that his “secret mission” failed due to a curse.
As he walks through the sandy desert, Bob learns more and more of the history of the New Earth Army unit . This was founded by Bill Django after the Vietnam War . With the help of various hippie or new age methods, including discussion groups and dance, but also parapsychological phenomena such as remote viewing, fortune telling and influencing thoughts, Django tried to create a troupe that was superior in terms of non-violence and intellectual abilities. After an intrigue by the recruit Larry Hooper, who is jealous of Lyn's superior abilities, he is dismissed and the unit is converted into a psychological fighting force. Lyn is eventually coerced into killing a goat by just staring at it. He succeeds in what he sees as his personal fall from grace and therefore leaves the group.
Half dying of thirst in the Iraqi desert, Bob finally finds water while following a wandering goat. Eventually, Bob and Lyn are found by a US helicopter and taken to a hospital .
After their recovery, the two roam the US base and find Django in a container full of goats. Shortly afterwards, Larry Hooper joins them again. Hooper proudly presents the base as a kind of continuation of the New Earth Army - it serves to invent and research new psychological combat tactics. Bill Django is also involved. Bill draws Bob and Lyn's attention to the prison cells in which Iraqi prisoners are tortured using non-physical torture methods ( white torture ). A tied prisoner is continuously beaten with stroboscopic cell lighting and music. Lyn is shocked by the consequences that the "New Earth Army" is apparently having and decides to die. Hooper says that Lyn was not sent on his mission by a vision, as previously claimed, but was made aware of the facility by another member of the force. Lyn has Bob return the eagle feather to Bill through Bob, which Bill once gave him for outstanding performance, but which he no longer believes he deserves. Bill is also completely disaffected. Everything seems lost, but in this situation Bob proves to be a worthy Jedi warrior, as his paranormal influence means that they say their old prayer again and find new strength in it:
“Mother Earth, you are my livelihood. As a soldier, your blue water refreshes me, your red clay serves as a house and your green skin as food. Help me to find my balance, just as you keep the earth, air and sea that surround me in balance. Teach me to open my heart and understand that you give me strength and nourishment. May my boots always kiss your face and my steps follow your heartbeat. Carry my body forever through space and time. You are my door to infinity and beyond. I belong to you, we are one, I greet you. "
As a result, Bill Django and Bob Wilton secretly move food and drinking water with LSD from Hooper's stores in the kitchen at night , which causes a corresponding mess after the soldiers have breakfast on the base. In general chaos, Django and Cassady free the prisoners and the goats. Eventually they leave Bob and fly off in a helicopter. You are missing.
Back in the US, Bob Wilton writes his revelatory story about the New Earth Army , its use today in the field of psychological warfare and the methods of torture in the US base. However, nobody seriously wants to publish the story. Only a short message appears on television about the use of the Barney & Friends title song for torture purposes. He has come to terms with the loss of his wife and wants to continue Cassady's work. Finally you see Bob, who has matured into an enlightened Jedi warrior, successfully walks through the wall of his office.
criticism
“How much truth there is in the absurd situations described cannot be said with certainty, but is also irrelevant as long as they are presented by such a playful cast. Then some script weaknesses don't matter too much. "
“Beyond all shame, George Clooney and Co. are rioting in this disrespectful army parody. And her mood is contagious. However, towards the end the story drifts completely into esoteric chaos. A breather from the confused happening would have saved the minds of many a viewer from the Super Gaga GAU. "
“There are funny moments, but nothing is funny to roar. There are some serious, cleverly built-in allusions to torture methods and occupation ignorance, but nothing to keep you occupied. Actually, there isn't much bad thing to say about "men who stare at goats". But if the poster is better than the film, then something is wrong. "
“Of course, as a relaxed Jedi warrior, Clooney has a disarming charm and Bridges and Spacey also skillfully balance their characters on the edge of the caricature. The film always starts to falter when it tries to pick up on current issues and convey “important messages”, because then it unabashedly unpacks its moral index finger. When secondary characters tell of the difficult war fate and the carefree farce suddenly mutates into a heavy moral fable. "
“Anti-war farce in the spirit of Robert Altmans M.ASH , which conjures up the anti-imperialist and pacifist spirit of the hippie movement in a nostalgic and ludicrous way. The precise staging and the brilliant actors ensure that, despite all the absurdities, the humanistic impetus becomes visible, which locates the true fools in an unscrupulous power apparatus. "
background
The story is based on the non-fiction book of the same name by the author Jon Ronson , which originally appeared in Germany under the title Durch die Wand .
The New Earth Army, of which Lyn Cassady is a member, really existed as the First Earth Battalion . It was a private initiative of individual US officers.
There is a great deal of speculation about military parapsychological research programs of the two superpowers at the time, the Soviet Union and the USA, during the Cold War . There is currently no evidence of a Soviet program. The CIA ran the MK ULTRA project mentioned in the film from 1953 to the 1970s , and from 1972 to 1995 the US military conducted research in the field of parapsychology under the code name " Star Gate ". Military research on changes in consciousness in test subjects by the US government is also considered to be secure.
Web links
- The Men Who Stare at Goats in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The Men Who Stare at Goats at Rotten Tomatoes (English)
- Official German website
Individual evidence
- ^ Certificate of Release for Men Staring at Goats . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , February 2010 (PDF; test number: 121 579 K).
- ↑ The Men Who Stare at Goats: the power of psychic spying telegraph.co.uk, November 4, 2009, accessed October 28, 2010
- ↑ TORTURE - hearing with pain. Spiegel Online, January 11, 2010, accessed April 10, 2010 .
- ↑ Critique of film releases
- ↑ cinema.de - criticism
- ↑ Spiegel Online - Critique
- ↑ Oliver Lysiak: Men who stare at goats (Review)
- ↑ Men who stare at goats. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed January 25, 2017 .
- ↑ Jon Ronson: Through the Wall. The US Army, absurd experiments and the war on terror . Salis, Zurich 2008, ISBN 978-3-905801-16-3
- ^ First Earth Battalion
- ^ The Vision Thing. Time Magazine, December 11, 1995, accessed July 4, 2011 .
- ↑ The Shock Strategy: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. Naomi Klein , 2007, accessed April 10, 2010 .