https://socialistaction.org/2016/05/19/eye-in-the-sky/
Eye in the Sky
/ 13 hours ago
May 2016 Drone
By JOE AUCIELLO
“Eye in the Sky,” (2016), a film directed by Gavin Hood, written by Guy
Hibbert, with Helen Mirren and Alan Rickman.
The arc of the suspense story is familiar enough. Begin the tale in
normal times, introduce a disruptive element whose threat deepens until
it is ultimately destroyed, and conclude with a return to normalcy.
To this successful formula, “Eye in the Sky” adds a sheen of high
seriousness by basing the film’s conflict on a moral question fraught
with a contemporary urgency. In the war against terrorism, what is the
value of a single human life—especially when that life belongs to an
innocent, young girl?
To sweeten the question, know that this child—happiest when playing with
her hula-hoop—is no terrorist herself and shows no inclination of ever
becoming one. An early scene reveals her reluctant submission to sharia
law and dislike of the Muslim extremists who would prohibit her
free-spirited play. Foreigner she may be, but at bottom, she’s just like
us. Hers, therefore, is a life that matters.
The story begins with Colonel Katherine Powell (Helen Mirren), a British
officer in command of an intelligence unit, using surveillance drones to
track an Islamic terrorist organization in Kenya. One of their leaders
is a British national, who thus far has been an elusive target.
With the assistance of these U.S. Air Force drones and agents on the
ground, the terrorists and their leaders have been detected and followed
to a safe-house. A Kenyan military unit is standing by to arrest the
group, until an undercover agent discovers that several young men are
being outfitted with bombs hidden in suicide vests. The British-American
mission is thus changed from “capture” to “kill,” which requires Col.
Powell to obtain legal authorization.
Here the story and setting shift from military bunkers to government
offices, back and forth, in a maddening game of political hot-potato, as
each political official tries to avoid taking responsibility for a
decision that, should it backfire, would most certainly result in
career-ending blame. It’s the one “death” not to be risked.
Intensifying the legal and moral dilemma is the appearance next to the
“kill site” of a young Kenyan girl of elementary-school age. She arrives
to sell the bread her mother bakes and sets up a make-shift stand by the
road-side. The presence of an innocent civilian could possibly abort the
attack—a possibility the military officers are desperate to avoid. The
American drone-operator, in fact, refuses to launch the Hellfire
missiles on Col. Powell’s order and insists that appropriate procedures
be followed and verified, despite the growing likelihood of a terrorist
suicide bombing that would murder scores of people.
Therefore, given the imminent threat, Col. Powell decides to go around
the military regulations that would protect noncombatants. She issues a
command-by-suggestion to one of her officers to create the computer
model that will “prove” the relative safety of the child when the bombs
rain down. Permission is thus granted, and the airstrike is launched,
with predictable results.
“Eye in the Sky” is an excellent film of its type. Tautly written,
fast-paced, well acted and directed, the movie has earned critical and
financial success. The flaws of the film, which become apparent with a
slight degree of thought, are actually no obstacle to its popularity.
Popcorn and propaganda mix well.
Of course, the characters must be simplified and the plot streamlined,
but most importantly of all, the Americans and British—at least their
military—must be favorably portrayed. Criticism is largely confined to
government officials, who provide a convenient and enjoyable foil.
Begin with Dame Helen Mirren, who plays the colonel in combat
camouflage. She is an appealing contrast to the “testosterone-deprived”
civilian politicians. As the latter bunch dicker and dither, her job is
to bark, “We have to strike now!” with ever-increasing degrees of urgency.
Veteran actor Jeremy Northam, in the role of Defense Minister, shows
that in his acting school days he surely earned top grades in the
Spineless Bureaucrat and Sniveling Coward classes. The late Alan
Rickman, as a character who need only be named “General,” is largely
limited to expressions of respectful exasperation with the politicians
and government officials, all apparently graduates of the Neville
Chamberlain School of Diplomacy.
While General is not overly troubled about blowing a little girl to
pieces, the audience knows nonetheless that he is a good and decent man
because, before going to work and urging the death of an innocent, he
frets about the right toy to buy for a grandchild.
From such a solid moral foundation, “General” delivers the film’s
indecent applause line, the one forbidding civilians from faulting the
military since only soldiers “know the cost of war.” The government
official who receives this tongue-lashing makes no reply, and silence
signifies the truth of the statement. It is also a cue to the public.
Here, a bit of dialogue resolves the tragedy in the story, which the
audience has been admonished to accept without a contrary word.
But there is every reason to question the military’s justification of
anything it does. The soldiers and “cost of war” line is the kind of
contrived falsehood that George Orwell identified as “political
language,” that is, a statement “designed to make lies sound truthful
and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”
Only soldiers know the terrible price of war? Unspoken in this
simple-minded platitude is the presumption that the fierce, unforgiving
urgency of combat creates the circumstances that requires and even
excuses any instance of indiscriminate killing. It’s the standard-issue
defense of war crimes and atrocities. Of course, it is also a point that
must not be mentioned, much less acknowledged.
Unacknowledged too is the consideration that hardship and poverty are at
the center of this movie, directly linking the soldier who fires the
drone missile to the young girl who is killed by it. He’s sitting in a
desert bunker, sweating, with a reluctant finger on the trigger,
because, after college, jobs were scarce, and the Air Force offered four
years of a secure income. The girl could have left the target site after
selling her wares, but a plot twist allows her to re-sell them, and
poverty compels her to stay. Financial need drives both these
characters, damaging the psyche of one and destroying the body of the
other—a word chosen for all of its connotations.
This is the story within the movie that the audience will not notice,
much less consider. Will the film compel many of its viewers to ask
about the estimated number of civilian deaths resulting from drone air
strikes? Not likely. Will many viewers notice that while the “Eye in the
Sky” centers on the possible risk to one civilian, real-life scenarios
frequently involve multiple victims? Again, not likely.
To ask these kinds of questions is to spoil the fun. Maybe soldiers know
the cost of war, but movies are made to guarantee that audiences know
the pleasure of it.
After the film credits roll, viewers of the movie will later that
evening become viewers of television news. They will eventually see
reports—if not one night, then another—of the U.S. military’s
accidentally blowing up a Doctors Without Borders hospital in
Afghanistan, bombing a wedding party in Yemen, or Air Force gunships
launching drone strikes that shred the flesh of dusky-skinned people in
various parts of the world.
“Eye in the Sky” will reassure these viewers that every measure possible
to secure civilian safety was considered and taken, even at risk to the
lives of U.S. soldiers. Surely, the federal government and its armed
forces could do no less. After all, they’re the good guys.
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May 19, 2016 in Africa, Anti-War, Arts & Culture. Tags: film, movies
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