There is no doubt that the Hurt Locker was the most deserving winner at the Oscars last night in Hollywood.
There is no doubt that the Hurt Locker was the most deserving winner at the Oscars last night in Hollywood. I can say that with definite authority, it being the only film I’ve seen this year at the cinema (apart from An Education, which was lovely).
The triumph of the film was to put you within the protective suits worn by the bomb disposal experts of the American army in Iraq: Kathryn Bigelow managed to make the tension unbearable each time they encountered a bomb, yet you realise it’s only a fraction of that the soldiers feel.
This also leads to admiration: the camera zooms about a square in Baghdad, and anyone fingering their mobile phone could be about to detonate a bomb. If I had been a soldier there, I would have shot everyone, and that is the moment you realise the super-human restraint they exercise. That is something few war films have ever done.
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And when I felt what they felt, I understood what a fully-realised work of empathy this was, and that’s why it won.
Watch the trailer for the Hurt Locker here
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