Films are ultimately experiences. They touch a nerve, mostly tangibly, often intangibly. Some films hit you with a bat; some creep astride ( and then inside) you. And then there's The Hurt Locker, a film which does both.
A military squad in Iraq, which the film follows episodically, is doing a job of defusing bombs. One of the soldiers discovers tragedy. Another counts his days to escape. And yet another finds the job to be his personal escape.
Its all attitude. It could be another day in the office, with different people just doing their jobs in their own way. But this is war - a different kind of an office.
And that's what the film is all about. In its edge-of-the-seat construction, it brings in its layers and sub-texts.
The psychology of a passion, when life is taken over and everything else matters little. When what you do (here: work inside a pressure cook) gets inside you so completely that it touches your very soul. And leaves you cold to the warmest of human connections. War becomes drug.
And in its realization of this grim idea comes the reality of what a war can make of a person.
Its a frightening, liberating and an imprisoning thought. And that's what this film is.
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