Interview: Tim Hetherington, director of RESTREPO

By Michael J Edwards / June 24, 2011

© Tim Hetherington Following its success across the pond, the fantastic war documentary 'Restrepo' is out in the UK this week. It's a rare beast, an honest portrayal of the front line in the 'war on terror' (or whatever it's called now) and it is packed with insight and intensity. We were lucky enough to catch up with one of its directors, Tim Hetherington (above, right), to talk about his film... OWF: You're an award-winning photographer as well as a cameraman for film and TV, at what point did you realise the two could be combined like this?

Tim Hetherington: I've been filming since about 2000 and what happened was I did the two things separately because, until now, there hasn't been room for crossover. The technology in the past just wasn't there. And now you have technology like the 5D that do crossover, and also the personalities and the budgets have changed. So the film ended up coming about organically when Sebstien Junger had the idea to cover the experiences of these guys and I suggested we should make a film about it.

TH: No, it's funny, we kind of mined the embed system in a way that, I guess, nobody had thought about doing before, and there was no oversight. We were allowed to just film! I mean we were very far from the bureaucracy of the press office at Jalalabad, so we were never censored, never had to show material, never had to show the pictures.

OWF: You didn't even have to show them the material?!

TH: No. Never.

OWF: That's unbelievable because it's totally the opposite of what we're led to believe about the military establishment isn't it?

TH: Well I think that the military establishment in the States, and the idea of the embed system, has been very tainted by the war in Iraq and Abu Ghraib and those kind of incidents. I also know the British press office is much more stringent, I know loads of journalists who have been asked to show copy, who have been asked to look at pictures, but the Americans are pretty easy going.

TH: I think in some ways people will always believe what they want, and people will always bash the military because they consider it fun, it's sport, they see it as fair game. And there's a prickly relationship between the press and the military, which is important for democracy. But at the same time its important that what journalism reveals is honest, and I think that what we did in Restrepo is show a film where a lot of the soldiers are very likable and that that kind of empathy, the emotional context, is important to being honest as a journalist. You don't have to be objective to be honest, I think it's very difficult to be objective about someone who's shooting at you! Some people from the far left and far right will always believe what they want to believe, but what I hope we've achieved is to re-humanise the war machine, which is not missiles, and tanks and helicopters, its young men on a mountainside and it's kill or be killed for each other. And our desire to sanitise war de-humanises them, and I hope that even if people disagree with the war they should understand what motivates young men in war.

OWF: Obviously you have a lot of experience in war-torn countries, can you outline what it's like moving between these different conflicts?

TH: If you're asking 'how different are the conflicts?', the civil war in Chad is very different to the war in Afghanistan, in Afghanistan the fighting is much more mechanised, the Americans have a lot more assets on their hands, the insurgents are very good fighters, but when I was in Africa I had to think a lot more for myself. In an embed system you just have to go along with it all and try not get yourself or anyone else killed.

© Tim Hetherington OWF: Obviously that was a huge question and I know how difficult it is to answer. But for people like me who have never been anywhere near such conflicts it seems almost impossible to understand one let alone compare...

TH: Well the comparisons are pretty funny, you know I was in Liberia, and during the conflict there the young fighters would daub graffiti on the houses that they took over and they'd be funny sort of war graffiti with their names and stuff. And in Restrepo they had a tattoo guy and they would tattoo each other, and I have this book coming out called 'Infidel', which documents the experience of the soldiers, and it comes from the tattoos they give each other. They tattoo 'Infidel' in big letters on themselves, and I asked "well why would you do that?" and their response was "Well, the enemy call us that so why the hell not?!" And it's funny because these tattoos were kind of psychological traces of war, just like the Liberian graffiti was, and seeing this comparison between a young man fighting in Liberia and a young man in the US army you realise that the world is not that far apart.

OWF: Having spent so much time with the men at Restrepo, did you find yourself getting sucked into their world or did you find the embed system made you into more of an observer?

TH: Well, we were totally part of the team. What was interesting about the experience was that we became, to all intents and purposes, part of the platoon. Except that we weren't carrying weapons and we didn't have to pull guard duty, though occasionally they would wake us up in the night to see if we could do that! But that is what's extraordinary about it, the whole film is about being there. I wasn't really interested in the journalistic experience per se, I wanted to bring the audience as close as I can to the experience of these men. That was what it was all about.

TH: I've made pieces of communication about war before, and realised that there was a very human element to what I wanted to convey. Like, how do you make an audience really care about or think about Afghanistan? It's very difficult to get people to connect with somebody other than their tribe, it's just how we are and how we relate to each other. Culture is very private, and so by bringing a perspective of a Westerner its somehow easier to access the environment of the war. And also a lot of the fighting and killing is isn't close to the experience of many people so, how do you reach them? It's those lighter moments where you see these as ordinary people doing ordinary things, and to me those were very important elements of the film.

OWF: Do you think that's something that war films have been neglecting?

TH: I haven't really seen many documentary war films that are really in verite, I can't really think of any.

OWF: The only one I can think of is 'Burma VJ'...

TH: There was a film in '68 called 'The Anderson Platoon' and that was shot by this crazy French guy in Vietnam, and he showed soldiers let by the first black captain. It was all shot on 16mm and obviously there was a separate sound guy attached to him, so imagine those two crazy people running around in battle? That was intense. But most of the documentary films about the war are kind of lectures, and then you have Hollywood films, and they are entertaining but you know at the back of your mind that... I don't know... Charlie Sheen isn't really coming back to get you!

'Restrepo' is out in the UK on Friday 8th October, and we recommend you try and see this superb documentary.