Why is Hollywood’s take on the Afghan conflict so different from the UK’s?

In the 13 years since the war in Afghanistan began, Hollywood has released at least five major feature films about it, including Lions for Lambs, Brothers, Zero Dark Thirty and Lone Survivor. In the same period, the UK has produced just one – the low-budget The Patrol. Next week, we receive No 2: the tough, gruelling Kajaki, a recreation of a lethal real-life 2006 incident in which a group of paratroopers were trapped in a minefield, named after the region in Helmand province where it occurred.

Kajaki is a fascinating, revealing artefact, whether or not you find its actual content – a visceral, empathethic study of the British military – of interest. One of the tiny band of non-second-world-war British war films, it has clearly been financed outside mainstream channels – no TV or BFI money here – and has chosen to go its own way with its distribution, having set up an exclusive deal with the Vue cinema chain and funnelling money back to military charities. It has also swerved clear of openly grappling with the thorny political issues that have surrounded the Afghan war – and its related conflict in Iraq – since its inception.

Kajaki is not a combat film per se: the courage and heroism on display don’t derive from engagement with the Taliban, but rather a gruesome blunder in to a minefield left over from the Soviet invasion. Kajaki’s executive producer Gareth Ellis-Unwin – best known as one of the producers of The King’s Speech – says Kajaki is “politically agnostic”: although one man lost his life, and several more were grievously injured, it’s a story of procedural cockup and red-tape as much as anything else.

Paul Katis, Kajaki’s director, suggests that in this respect the film is truer to “the nature of war”. During his research, he says, he asked about medals: “How many were for a chosen, planned action, and how many for things going wrong?” The “informal” feedback was that “80%-90%” were given in connection with the latter.

Films about the Afghan and Iraq wars will inevitably trigger outraged responses – and not just from Guardian readers. But war films are a staple part of cinema, ranging from extreme, realist statements of radical intent –The Battle of Algiers, Land and Freedom – to fantasies that try to rewrite history – Rambo, Red Dawn. Add in numerous combat documentaries on the one hand, and mythic sci-fi and pseudo-histories – Starship Troopers, Lord of the Rings, Ender’s Game, etc – on the other, and it’s clear we are never far from a war film of one kind or another.  Read More at Guardian