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TORONTO 2010

Toronto Review: Janus Metz's Incredible War Doc 'Armadillo'

by Alex Billington
September 18, 2010

I'm not normally a big documentary guy, so I don't see many of them over the course of a year, but I'd heard some great things about a Danish doc called Armadillo that won the top prize in the Semaine de la Critique (Critics' Week) sidebar in Cannes earlier this year. I finally saw this documentary in Toronto and damn is it good, it's pretty much as incredible as you've likely heard, but not perfect. Armadillo is a documentary that follows a platoon of Danish soldiers on a six month tour to a front line army base in Afghanistan in the war against the Taliban in early 2009. It's intense and emotional and, yes I'll say it, better than The Hurt Locker.

What I mean to say is that I'm not the biggest fan of The Hurt Locker. Although I think it's a great film, I've got a few minor issues with it, whereas Armadillo is absolutely engrossing, extremely intense, and entirely real. We're introduced to a few soldiers as they leave their families in Denmark and land in Afghanistan at the base known as Armadillo. They get to see some action over their six month tour and this includes some very intense battles where even the cameraman is caught off guard. There are no talking head interviews, it's an embedded crew that is documenting this and with Uno Helmersson's beautiful score, we don't need any explanation, as the narrative unveils itself and it's riveting to watch - your eyes will never leave the screen.

Although I loved Armadillo and was blown away by it (pun not intended), my only complaints are nitpicky things that come from a lack of explanation and confusion in some of the action "scenes" when the soldiers are in combat. We hear them calling out commands and shouting things, yet we don't learn how/why they know any of that info or how the operation is playing out. I realize that might come from their military not allowing those details to be disclosed, but there were a few times where I was confused, even though I was still captivated by everything we were seeing. It's a very tough war documentary to watch, because you never know if a bullet is going to come out of nowhere and hit one of these soldiers, but one of the best I've seen.

I know there are a lot of war docs out there, like Sebastian Junger's Restrepo which is quite similar to this, but there is something about Armadillo that I think stands out above the rest. If you love documentaries at all there is no question that you must add Metz's Armadillo to your list of docs to see as soon as possible.

Alex's Toronto Rating: 9 out of 10

Filed under Review, TIFF 10

From around the web:

Brian

Could everyone please stop writing whether their pun was intended or not, I don't care.
http://www.firstshowing.net Alex Billington

^ The only reason I added that this time is because I was worried people would think I was trying to make a pun by saying "blown away" since this is a war documentary, but that's not what I was doing, I truly was blown away by the film.
beavis

hurt locker was over-rated. i never understood why it was given such high recognition. i LOVE documentaries, so i'll be watching this for sure.
Tester

Gonna take it one step past Beavis, I thought the Hurt Locker was not only completely overrated, but I thought it was a crappy boring movie.. How that movie won best picture I will never know
http://movies.iconocritic.com peloquin

Wow...I really loved Hurt Locker so I don't know what you guys are talking about. It was the first film to break out of the Iraq war paradigm and do something unique while crafting a superb character piece and some of the most intense and realistic action sequences I've ever seen.
Xerxex

peloquin you're right about it breaking out, but it was just shoved down our throats after it came out. I'll be seeing this for sure.
Daniel

There are a lot of flaws in hurt locker, uniforms, weapon attachments, gear, just the fact that 3 eod guys are driving around in a humvee alone, that doesn't happen. It's a good movie none-the-less.
http://www.twitter.com/andreascliment Andreas Climent

I can only agree with Alex. Saw Armadillo at a press event a few weeks ago here in Sweden. It's a GREAT documentary. The editing, music and camera work are all really good. Some scenes are a bit tough to watch, but nevertheless, I think it's an important movie to see since it takes viewers right into the life of these soldiers risking their life every single day.
beavis

thanks for taking it one more step, tester - i was just trying to be nice.............i didn't like hurt locker at all. also - why are all of the modern war movies of the last few years about iraq? there is plenty of action going on in afghanistan - and i'd like to see at least 1 good movie about that.
http://www.firstshowing.net Alex Billington

#5 - Peloquin... Armadillo does exactly everything you said The Hurt Locker does as well (except it's set in Afghanistan, not Iraq) but most importantly, it was all REAL.
Geoff

Hurt Locker was HIGHLY overrated. That was all about gender politics and nothing more.