We’ve heard of tone poems, auteurist pieces, and actors’ films, but Warfare may be the first sound department film. The deafening blasts of gunfire, the concussive bangs of grenades and improvised explosive devices, and the warbly echoes of voices that struggle to make themselves known in the wake of violence are front and center throughout the film. Sound editor Ben Barker, designer Glenn Freemantle (an Oscar winner for his work on 2013’s Gravity), and mixer Mitch Low make Warfare a complex sonic assault that draws us into the anxious, shell-shocked perspective of the young men at its center.
Based on “only their memories,” as the opening onscreen text informs us, Warfare portrays a horrific event in the lives of a platoon of Navy SEALs in 2006 Iraq—specifically, the platoon that cowriter-director Ray Mendoza belonged to when he was a soldier. The film’s script was crafted by Mendoza and fellow cowriter-director Alex Garland based on interviews with the members of Mendoza’s platoon in an attempt to develop an accurate re-creation of the incident.
At the film’s Chicago premiere, held at the Music Box Theatre on March 16, Mendoza said the film’s goals are twofold: first, to function as a conversation starter between veterans who often have difficulty communicating with civilians, and second, to help his platoon-mate Elliott (played in the film by Shōgun’s Cosmo Jarvis), who was severely wounded and hasn’t been able to remember what happened to him, better understand the experience that changed his life.
It’s an ambitious combination of social and personal goals, and only time will tell how successful it is. But there is no doubt that Warfare is, to this civilian’s eyes and rattled ears, the most effective any film has been at not only communicating but sharing the mental state of soldiers in warfare. R, 95 min.
Wide release in theaters
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