Home of the Brave (2006)

In fact I expected to see another patriotic movie about "the heroic, liberating" battles of the American army in Iraq, but I was surprised. I think the movie is extraordinary because of the aspect in which the war is revealed. Not about the victory or lose of battle on the field but losing the battle with yourself with your fears and traumas you cannot overcome for life. I think maybe this film is misunderstood to a significant extent by most people who had never been in the army, because they can never be aware of the shock and stress on the battlefield and the anti-social effect upon you when you are in the army and you don't think about daily problems, but you only struggle to survive and the only hope that keeps you going is one day to get home, see your family, friends, relatives. In the battlefield when your only dream and hope is to get home, you make it perfect and ideal in your dreams, and of course the next is step is the disappointment and depression when you get back and see that instead of sympathy for your suffers you meet hate, instead of gratitude you meet indifference. As in life people forget quick, everyone are forgotten, as all your friends you left in the desert. Maybe that is the strong point of the movie - the clearly universal human reveal of what war brings along and that the romantic and heroic is left behind the hatred and desperation. You are called no war hero - but war criminal. It is also not only government, institutions and army guilty about the war, but all society because it elected and supported this government. Some of my colleagues and some boys I don't know from our brigade, that never came home, and for all young men that never lived to see their home again I rate this movie 10. I think they deserve respect as humans, that went to fight for a cause, that they did not choose to fight for. Better fight for something than live for nothing. The history shall judge if their sacrifice was in vain.