Kajaki: The True Story was released in the UK on 28th November 2014. According to IMDb there’s no current US release date. Come on, America. Sort it out.
Here are some fun facts about landmines in Afghanistan:
There are approximately 10 million of them lurking amongst 530 sq km of the troubled country.
The Soviet’s mine of choice was the charmingly named butterfly mine that more often than not resemble toys – hence 20% of mine casualties are children.
Fear of having your hands blown off picking crops has severely disrupted Afghanistan’s agriculture.
The Kajaki Dam in Helmand Province, which provides electricity for the Lashkar Gah area and Kandahar City, as well as irrigating 1800 sq km of arid land, was out of operation for 10 years because it was haunted.
Not really! It was mines again.
The Kajaki Dam is also the setting for Kajaki: The True Story, a harrowing British war flick which feels the need to tell you it’s a true story to stifle those cries of “Bullshit” from those who would doubt its veracity – something you may well have done if someone recounted all of the catalog of clusterfucks that befell a small unit of British Paratroopers in a remote area of Helmand Province in 2006.
Shot in Jordan for a partially crowd-funded £1.2m, Kajaki recounts the trials of a British sniper patrol making their way across a dried-out riverbed to investigate a Taliban roadblock, when one of their number steps on a landmine. As the rest of his team attempt to rescue their fallen comrade, they realise too late that they have inadvertently stumbled into an unmarked minefield left over from the Russian occupation. Any wrong movement could mean the loss of limb or life, their plight compounded by the potential threat of Taliban attacks, faulty or sub-standard equipment, and bungled helicopter rescue attempts that cause more harm than good.
Which sounds like the wet-dream, high-concept movie pitch of a coke-addled movie exec. Possibly starring Marky Mark Wahlberg as the best ex-alcoholic minesweeper in the business who mounts a rescue operation to atone for past traumas related to a previously botched mission that cost the lives of most of his platoon. Cue tortured ruminations on the politics of war, slo-mo scenes of fellow squaddies being eviscerated in the sun, and a preponderance of explosions accompanied by the obligatory shaky-cam.
All to a sweeping, orchestral score because JINGOISM!
Except Kajaki isn’t really interested in all that overly-stylized Lone Survivor-style bollocks. Instead, director Paul Katis strips away the artifice and produces a brutal, efficient thriller that focuses on the camaraderie and valour of ordinary (albeit highly trained) blokes in an extraordinary situation. Using an almost documentary style to maintain its veil of authenticity, Katis manages to extract maximum amounts of tension thanks to a combination of sweaty close-ups, deft editing and excellent sound design (never has the crunch of rocks underfoot been so wince-inducing). Enhancing the stricken squad’s plight, Kajaki has no problem in showing you in graphic detail the horrendous damage a landmine can inflict on the human body. The camera plunges you face-first into the viscera, creating an atmosphere as grimy as it is grueling as we experience second-hand the terrified soldiers’ increasingly desperate attempts to stay alive amidst all the screaming agony.
Just out of shot – Paul Verhoeven jumping up and down clapping his hands like a little girl.
There’s no overt political diatribes; no hand-wringing examinations of the human soul; no archetypes. Just a highly effective variation on what Katis refers to as ‘Monster in the House’ movies, which “rely on a hidden enemy that can strike at any time and the desperate ploys of the film’s heroes in trying to escape it.”
Populated by a talented cast of relative unknowns spouting military jargon almost as impenetrable as the thick accents and dialects, scribe Tom Williams’s earthy script (whose previous effort was the diametrically opposite first-world problems of sappy rom-com Chalet Girl) punctures the visceral intensity with an understandable injection of gallows humour that gradually humanizes a group of professional soldiers caught in a horrific situation.
“Hilarious!” – Variety
Although it doesn’t browbeat you with propaganda, Kajaki means to pay tribute to the ordinary men and women who risk their lives by telling one of many fucked-up stories, set in a fucked-up country, about a fucked-up war against a noun. It’s no surprise that profits from the film will be donated to the Royal British Legion. By emphasizing courage in the face of overwhelming odds over big-budget pyrotechnics, and showing us the natural brotherhood that develops between those under extreme circumstances, Kajaki avoids getting mired in the dirty politics of it all to tell a very human story in its own resolutely British way. Which means a bucket-load of profanity, laughing in the face of adversity, and sticking two fingers up to certain death – all with the promise of a piss-up at the end of the day.
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