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There have been many documentary films made about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. None of them put the viewer into the war from such a first-hand perspective as this one. American journalist Sebastian Junger and British photojournalist Tim Hetherington embedded themselves with the Second Platoon, B Company, 2nd Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment of the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team for an entire 15-month deployment. They went on missions with the soldiers in the Korengal valley, which was called the deadliest place on Earth.

The film’s title comes from PFC Juan S. Restrepo, a Colombian-born naturalized American soldier who was killed early in the deployment. One of the goals of the deployment was to build an advanced outpost, which the soldiers named OP Restrepo. For a year and a quarter, these soldiers are under fire on a daily basis. They’re official mission is to clear the area of insurgents and build relationships with the locals. But it’s clear that the individual soldiers have a different mission — do their job and get out alive.
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Check Out the Trailer

This Oscar-nominated foreign language film from Greece is a tale of home schooling to the extreme. I felt like I was watching a Todd Solondz film crossed with Lars von Trier. I’m surprised that the Academy recognized something so odd and uncompromising. When it’s all said and done, you know one thing for sure — you’ve never seen anything quite like it before.

With the existential touch, none of the central family is given names. A father (Christos Stergioglou, HARD GOODBYES: MY FATHER) and mother (Michele Valley, ALEXANDRIA) live in complete isolation from the outside world with their three grown children. The father leaves their house, which is cordoned off by a tall wall, in his car to go to work at his manufacturing business each day. He brings home a female security guard named Christina (Anna Kalaitzidou) to fulfill the sexual needs of his son (Hristos Passalis, BLACK FIELD). The systematic way they go about it is like he’s doing a chore. I guess that’s why he has the most stickers on his headboard, rewards from father for a job well done. The older sister (Aggeliki Papoulia, ALEXANDRIA) is the most rebellious of the three and is violently reprimanded for it. The younger sister (Mary Tsoni, EVIL) follows her older siblings lead and comes up with new games for passing the time, like putting their fingers under the hot tap and the last one to pull away wins.
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Buy It Now!

Read my review of NEVER LET ME GO.

Director Mark Romanek’s haunting aesthetic and Adam Kimmel’s gorgeous cinematography is masterfully brought to Blu-ray. The muted color palette is brought forth in a crisp image that finds a right balance between film grain and bold detail. The greens of the Hailsham Boarding School yard are deep, while keeping inline with natural look of the entire film. There is some noise in low-lit scenes, notably an early one where Carey Mulligan stands in an observation room at a hospital, but these moments are fleeting.

The 5.1 Dolby Digital soundtrack is respectful for the quiet film. Good for a dialogue oriented production, the voices are clear throughout. Volume of the dialogue, music and sound effects is mixed well. The soundscape however relies on the front speaker predominantly.

The special features are limited. The making of doc, “The Secrets of Never Let Me Go,” talks with the filmmakers and actors about their approach to the metaphoric sci-fi material. Considering there is no commentary track on the disc, this is all we get and it’s a pretty solid 30-minute look into the film’s production. The doc lays out how the project came together; it’s funny how serendipity plays a role sometimes. Then it moves into the artistic choices for bringing the beautiful, but sad tale to the screen. There is also still galleries of Romanek’s on-set photos, the Tommy character’s artwork, as well as the theatrical trailer.