"Auslandseinsatz"

[eddie]

Works here in the States, just checked it out for a bit. Will watch the whole thing if I can later. From what I saw, tropps arriving in a bus in Afghanistan seems a bit dangerous, armored troop carriers of some sort would be better I would think.
Movie comes in nice and clear, can't wait to see the whole thing. Needs more english sub titles though.

[August]

Has there ever been a German movie with a happy ending?

[MH]

Originally Posted by August

Has there ever been a German movie with a happy ending?

For this we have HOLYWOOD.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by August

Has there ever been a German movie with a happy ending?

Yes. But a war movie being realistic should be uncomfortable and anti-happy ending. There never has been a war with a happy ending, and there never will be. Victory, maybe. But always at a high cost, and plenty of injustice done. Seen that way, a war movie without happy ending is almost a compliment for the screenplay writer.

The intention of the producing people - by their own commenting - was to make the film semi-documentary in style, so: sober, distanced a bit. So not to offer happy endings and easy solutions is even more logical, considering it is about the Afghan maze.

[August]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Yes. But a war movie being realistic should be uncomfortable and anti-happy ending. There never has been a war with a happy ending, and there never will be. Victory, maybe. But always at a high cost, and plenty of injustice done.

I can see why you Germans might see it that way but that really depends on the scope and subject of the war movie in question.

For example, the story of a Soldier who does his duty to his country serving honorably in a war, then afterward returns safely to his home and the loving arms of his family before going on to live a happy and full life is, by any realistic measure, a war movie with a happy ending.

Just ask some of the millions of our veterans from any of our wars throughout our history whether it was won, lost or tied, who did exactly that. Sure you'll find some who didn't have it work out that way but the overwhelming majority of them did and therefore their tales are far more "realistic" than any negative exception you may care to mention.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by August

I can see why you Germans might see it that way but that really depends on the scope and subject of the war movie in question.

For example, the story of a Soldier who does his duty to his country serving honorably in a war, then afterward returns safely to his home and the loving arms of his family before going on to live a happy and full life is, by any realistic measure, a war movie with a happy ending.

Just ask some of the millions of our veterans from any of our wars throughout our history whether it was won, lost or tied, who did exactly that. Sure you'll find some who didn't have it work out that way but the overwhelming majority of them did and therefore their tales are far more "realistic" than any negative exception you may care to mention.

But that does not change that no war ever is fair, humane, just. It is inhumane, barbaric, filled with destruction and dying, and all too many innocents suffer dearly from it. Always. A given ending of a war might have been necessary as an objective to achieve, but it never is fair, happy, humane. That's why I say there are wars of needs and wars of desires, and the first must be accepted, but the latter should be avoided at all cost.

And that is not just a German issue, August. When your forefathers had their civil war, I think I read somewhere that most American families suffered casualties and lost loved ones. And even if it is no majority, it still were damn many families whose sons and fathers bled to death and whose wifes and daughters got raped or murdered. The outcome of the war, as an objective to be achieved, might have been necessary. Still, for those having been effected by the war, the end of the war brought relief that it was over. But no happy end.

Or to say it with LaoTse (and I use German since it is my own translation, I am not satisfied with any of the translations to German around, and I cannot put it in better words or adequately transport it to English):

Auch beste Waffen sind Zeichen des Todes,
Der Weise verächtlich meidet sie.
Er wendet sich ab von ihnen.
Die Freude erfüllt sein Leben im Frieden,
Die Trauer erfüllt sein Leben im Krieg.
Waffen sind nicht des Wesens Weise,
Nur gezwungen benutzt sie ein weiser Mensch,
Wenn es gar nicht mehr anders sonst geht.
Nichts weiß er von der Freude am Kämpfen,
Den Sieg zu lieben heißt mordfreudig sein.
Wer mordfreudig ist, ist außerhalb der Freude, zu Leben.
Nach dem Sieg ist der Truppe die Freude,
Des Feldherrn indes sei die Trauer,
Er begehe den Sieg wie eine Trauerfeier.
Töten heißt Trauer schaffen,
Wessen Handeln Trauer schafft,
Dem sei jeder Sieg wie ein Begräbnis.

Let people celebrate in relief that they survived it without own losses to their health, life, family, friends. But never ever mistake that with wars having happy endings. Every warrior is a gravedigger.

[Catfish]

Millions of the victor did NOT return to home, it is not anyhow like e.g. this infamous propaganda painter Norman Rockwell depicts his idyllic world.




If anyone wins it is the weapon industries, and other war profiteers.

"The conquered mourns, the conqueror is undone" - they sure knew their wars.

[August]

Originally Posted by Catfish

Millions of the victor did NOT return to home, it is not anyhow like e.g. this infamous propaganda painter Norman Rockwell depicts his idyllic world.

Yeah but even more millions did return home and lived full and happy lives afterward. The truth is that casualty rates, at least in my country, were about 1 in 15 overall. To listen to you guys one would think that was the survivor rate.

I'm not minimizing the horrible things that happen in war but to act like the worst experiences and later outcomes are the norm is just not realistic.

[joea]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Yes. But a war movie being realistic should be uncomfortable and anti-happy ending. There never has been a war with a happy ending, and there never will be. Victory, maybe. But always at a high cost, and plenty of injustice done. Seen that way, a war movie without happy ending is almost a compliment for the screenplay writer.

The intention of the producing people - by their own commenting - was to make the film semi-documentary in style, so: sober, distanced a bit. So not to offer happy endings and easy solutions is even more logical, considering it is about the Afghan maze.

Well said Skybird-I think so for every war. This happens sometimes in fiction too, contrast the ending of the Lord of the Rings films with Star Wars, no I'm serious. Both against really evil enemies (thouigh both with nuances, even Sauron in Tolkien's writings started out wanting to do good) but LOTR had a very bittersweet ending with a lot of loss and changes from the conflict. You see a little of that in US films outside of Vietnam films, notably Thin Red Line and Band of Brothers.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by joea

Well said Skybird-I think so for every war. This happens sometimes in fiction too, contrast the ending of the Lord of the Rings films with Star Wars, no I'm serious. Both against really evil enemies (thouigh both with nuances, even Sauron in Tolkien's writings started out wanting to do good) but LOTR had a very bittersweet ending with a lot of loss and changes from the conflict. You see a little of that in US films outside of Vietnam films, notably Thin Red Line and Band of Brothers.

A Thin Red Line is so much more than just a war movie. It's almost a religious meditation about so much more than just war. War is just one part of the roundely that "it" all is. I hold that film in very high esteem, it is one of my all time favourites, and the - by far - best of all of Malick's movies, imo.

Band of Brothers also was very good, though obviously setting the scope for a different fix. Although similiar in style and the visual way in which it was relaised to Private ryan, the one thing that imo makes Brothers better than Ryan is that Ryxan at the end has this Hollywood typical timing for a - though pathetic, which makes it even worse - happy ending, the P-47 I think it was sweeping in and cleaning the enemy, and the heroic Captain having given his life to acchieve this ending. Brothers just ran out at the end, showed a slow, nonsensational shift from combat to occupation and relative peace. - Indeed a very very good series, one of the best pieces about WWII ever shot. I find it remarkable that an American crew could ha<ve made a film about American "heroes" withgout either hacking away at them or gloryfying them, simply paionting them as humans without all that usual pathetic glory&patriotism posture on display that you usually expect from a Hollywood movie.

The BBC made a good and probably realistic movie about war as well, the Bosnia war. The film was called "Warriors", and is already a bit older. Sober, tragic, showing the inner conflicts of the British soldiers being eaten up by the impossible and even shameful situation the UN's idiocy had put them into. "Auslandseinsatz" reminded me of that a bit.

Armies' and soldiers' job is not to improve civilian infrastructure and to rebuild schools. Their business is to wage war when there is war, or to train for fighting a war when there is peace currently. Europe has forgotten that. The madnesses we got ourselves entangled in since the Balkan wars, is a direct result of this. The psychic conflicts the actors suffer from in "Auslandseinsatz", also is a result from this illusion. Maybe a well-meant illusion, but still an illusion. The part on "well-meant", actually means nothing in this, it causes no good effects. What causes effects, bad ones, is the illusion.

[Dan D]

Originally Posted by August

Has there ever been a German movie with a happy ending?

Of course there are German movies with happy endings, August.

Just think of the closing scene in the movie "Downfall", which is German comedy at its best with a happy ending:

"the young boy rides together with the pretty girl on her bicycle into the sunrise" ?

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by eddie

Works here in the States, just checked it out for a bit. Will watch the whole thing if I can later. From what I saw, tropps arriving in a bus in Afghanistan seems a bit dangerous, armored troop carriers of some sort would be better I would think.
Movie comes in nice and clear, can't wait to see the whole thing. Needs more english sub titles though.

The plan and idea for the production started some years ago and bases on information they gathered from even earlier times. The German ROE probably always were schizophrenic, but in the earlier years, security was seen slightly more relaxed.

Movie was shot in Marocco, btw.

Originally Posted by eddie

From what I saw, tropps arriving in a bus in Afghanistan seems a bit dangerous, armored troop carriers of some sort would be better I would think.

We had to learn this lesson on 7/6/2003



29 Wounded
4 Killed

Andreas Beljo (†28)
Carsten Kühlmorgen (†32)
Jörg Baasch (†23)
Helmi Jimeniz-Paradis (†29)