“Severe Clear”

Reviewed 17 February 2010 by Ted Faraone

2 ½ stars out of five; $6.25 ticket on a scale of $0 to $12.50.

WAR IN THE AGE OF YOU TUBE

It was inevitable with the advent of You Tube and low cost miniature video cameras that a soldier would make a war documentary using his Mini-DV.  Such is “Severe Clear,” an account of the 2003 assault on Baghdad and its aftermath by decorated former US Marine officer Mike Scotti.  Pic has the advantage of providing a combatant’s eye-view.  It has the disadvantage of being shot by a guy who has no future as a cameraman.  To say that Scotti is no steady Eddy would be an understatement.  One expects his combat footage to be a tad haywire, and it doesn’t disappoint.  After all, it is shot under enemy fire.  But with few exceptions, his non-combat shots are poorly framed and jumpy.  Watching “Severe Clear” takes a little getting used to.

To his credit, however, Scotti does reveal much that is rarely, if ever, reported by mainstream news media:  Marines have little respect for journalists, to whom they tend to refer as “moron” or “loser”; the only thing a Marine thinks about more than sex is his rifle; Marines do not like Navy food; they tend to complain about their kit; one of the most difficult things about desert warfare is relieving oneself during a sandstorm; frontline units In Iraq were woefully short on Arabic speakers; Marines sometimes behave vulgarly.

Based on Scotti’s unpublished book, pic, written and directed by Kristian Fraga, unspools in “chapters” -- one through nine plus an epilogue.  It is narrated largely by Scotti, himself, reading from his wartime journals, letters, and emails, interspersed with snippets of Colin Powell at the UN, George W. Bush announcing the beginning of hostilities, and radio news reports from the BBC and others.  The snippets, together with some title cards help set the context, although credit must be given to Scotti for thoroughness in that regard.

Filmmakers intend to convey both the chaos of combat and the crushing boredom of the intervals between combat.  While they succeed on both counts, their success in the latter is overwhelming.  When combat erupts, it is almost relief in a film that feels a lot longer than its 93 minutes.  Speaking of relief, “Severe Clear” is severely lacking in the comic variety.  There are barely two funny notes, even when Marines are horsing around.  Notable among them is a notebook page taped to the bathroom in Saddam Hussein’s Babylon palace offering fifty cent tours of the dictator’s toilet.  After “liberating” UN headquarters in Baghdad, Scotti looks for a phone among hundreds that don’t work in order to call his family in New Jersey.  Finding one at long last, he places the call, only to get voicemail.  It’s a latter day Ralph Kramden moment.

Scotti’s unit was attached to one of three forward columns that raced from Kuwait to Baghdad.  He was among the first to enter the Iraqi capital, and it is in these scenes that pic finally takes flight.  His footage and account of Iraqis looting their own country is as good if not better than contemporary news reports, and he manages to convey viscerally the fear that 25,000 Coalition soldiers feel while holding down a city the size of Philadelphia with no plan from the Pentagon for keeping order.  They never know whether the Iraqi with whom they stand for a photo in the daytime will be their assassin that night.  Due to the disruption brought about by the Coalition air campaign against the city, the garbage had piled up.  It had not been collected for weeks by the time Scotti’s unit gets there.  In 109 degree heat Baghdad stinks.  And then there are the corpses festering in the sunshine, food for the flies who find their way to faces of Marines.  They cause almost as much human misery as enemy fire.

As much as “Severe Clear” recounts a journey from the Arabian Sea to Babylon it also recounts a journey in heart and soul of its author, Mike Scotti.  Eventually the emotions of payback for 9-11 and patriotism give way to cynicism.  No weapons of mass destruction are found.  Why did we fight this war, he asks.  The constant is the Marine Corps.  Scotti is, at his core, a Marine.  If he had to he’d do it all over knowing what he now knows, he’d do it not for the country but for the Corps, he says, back in New York. 

“Severe Clear” is rated R, largely for four-letter words, vulgarity, some nudity, and violence.  Some problems with audio (Scotti is an amateur and natural sound is what it is) are overcome by subtitles.

--30--