Every single one of us has been in a situation that we can't explain later, be it traumatic or just a situation of day-to-day life that got away from our control until we worked for change. We look back to that situation and live with regret, and some measure of defense of our actions, knowing, shame-faced, we would probably act the same way again if there was a do-over allowed.
Think of battered wives or husbands.
Think of those brainwashed in religious or anarchian compounds.
Think of reality television.
Think of brutality in riots.
Think of Vietnam.
Think of Iraq.
Now you have the premise for "In the Valley of Elah," another winner by filmmaker Paul Haggis. If you don't know Haggis by name (living under a rock, perhaps), then you may know him by his Academy Award winner "Crash" (and if you haven't seen "Crash" you should see that too...talk about race relations). "Elah" is simple and wonderfully constructed to be a solid, intricate picture about a father trying to decipher what the Gulf War (this one) has done to his son and the squadron his son served with. I'm not going to give away the ending, but I wept through the last half of the movie just feeling the regret and not being able to explain it, how I sat there and had misgivings about the war in 2003 and thought I was just being soft on terrorists...thinking there was something wrong with me for not wanting the war...listening to friend say that we needed to be there but none of her sons or nephews should go. I can't do anything about that now, but the last frame of the movie is a good indicator of what Jones's character explained toward the beginning.
And Haggis knows when to give the 1,000 words to an image.
Go David, and sling your pebbles true.
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