Culture

TV ONE
8.30pm Monday
4/5

Like most of you, I try not to turn over to Channel One lest a cloud of depression in the form of Coronation Street or some other retirement-home-friendly drivel descend on me and make me feeble and old before my time. But recently, I have to say these guys have been picking up their game. I saw one episode of Generation Kill, and I’m sorta kinda hooked. The show takes a revealing and often harsh look at the lives of an array of marines that occupied the front lines of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. David Simon and Ed Burns (the men behind critically-acclaimed drama series The Wire) bring us the searing seven-part mini-series, which has been described by a somewhat unctuous reviewer as “journalism converted to art, with both benefiting (equally).” A big call, but depending on how the series turns out, possibly not far off the mark. Generation Kill (unfortunately named, I must say – it sounds like a Stallone film or something) takes its content from a trio of award-winning articles written by Evan Wright for Rolling Stone magazine. The reporter was embedded with the 1st Reconnaissance Battalion as it moved from Kuwait to Baghdad, so immediately there’s a sense that the show knows what it’s talking about (and that it isn’t simply conjuring up unrealistic hero figures and enigmatic characters purely for our enjoyment). Wright navigates between such personalities as the wheezing yet authoritative 1st Recon. Commander Stephen Ferrando (affectionately nicknamed ‘The Godfather’), stoic ‘Iceman’ and team leader Brad Colbert, and the vehement and capricious ‘Captain America’. The troops tackle some disparate topics: they discuss homosexuality and J-Lo, mimic other troops and crack (often bad taste) jokes while they push their way further into Iraq and the dirt, complexity, and vicissitudes of war. Orders from the top result in botched bombing raids, inadequate equipment, Humvees that deteriorate hopelessly, and a myriad of other difficulties that the marines need to endure. All this can at times seem either over-the-top or vulgar, but the show’s not all bravado and bullshit – it’s often peppered with poignant moments of insecurity, youth, and naivety. Also refreshingly, the show doesn’t sermonise about the war, or get too overbearingly political. Its focus is on the characters first and foremost, with the political implications left relatively open to interpretation.
Generation Kill places you in the middle of a multi-layered struggle for control between soldiers, officers, Iraqi civilians, and Iraqi insurgents that’s almost tangible. Friendships, leadership roles, and even the very nature and execution of the war itself are in a violent and constant state of flux, uncertainty, and upheaval. It feels like you’re as much embedded in the unit as Wright was in a way. This visceral perspective, from the ground level of the war, is what makes this program truly stand out. It’s simply good, character-driven storytelling, which just so happens to be based on an event that changed the trajectory of history and of nations. No matter how you felt about the war, it’s certainly not something to be ignored. Check it out for yourself while you can, because there’s only three parts to go!