The Best Movie I've Ever Walked Out Of...

I have been pretty insanely busy of late--running an on line class, the usual real-time ad class, church stuff, prepping for an intensive later in the summer, and putting together the finishing touches on the evening I am helping to curate at the Episcopal General Convention (more on that later)--was feeling a bit pulled in too many directions so I opted for a movie to find some respite. I picked the wrong one. Hurt Locker is a fantastic film, I can't really say enough good about it. It is the story of a bomb-disposal unit deployed in Iraq and believe me, this is a film aiming for realism. But after the first five minutes I was starting to get uncomfortable and squirming in my seat, not from the violence, but from the unbelievable tension that permeates virtually every scene. In fact, I really appreciated that the filmmakers (it's directed by Katherine Bigelow) had every opportunity to exploit the violence factor and instead chose to dial it down, leaving most of it to the imagination. But the tension, now that's another matter. After about an hour of sitting through one tense situation after another I just had to leave. It was relentless, a familiar face would appear on screen and a wave of internal relief would sweep through my mind, "well, they're a pretty big movie star, they won't get taken out..." And opting for relatively unknown actors in central roles only adds to the tension, essentially no character in the film is safe, and by default, neither is the viewer. I must admit that I have problems with war films, I swear I had a full-on panic attack watching Born on the Fourth of July! I can handle violence when it is eroticized (well, for the most part, Kill Bill had some moments)--the pornographic veneer of Michael Mann, the sheen of Scorcese, but when it is gritty and reaching for real rather than imagined realms, I'm a goner. I don't know what it is, I'll have to give it some serious thought though, because this last bout was pretty uncomfortable--the last thing I needed, given that I was already stressed, but perhaps that level of stress just compounded my response to the film. All this to say, that I wish I was emotionally stronger, I didn't want to leave, but I couldn't stay, and it was one of the few films I have seen of late that I think is actually really, really worth seeing.