These conflicts can feel so far away and distant and I feel like it’s my job to make them feel immediate, to create an empathetic connection between the audience and these issues that feel so distant and so far away. Heineman explains: “What I try to do is take these large, amorphous subjects that we’re inundated with stats and headlines and, in some cases, misinformation and try to humanise them, try to put a human face to them, and that’s certainly what I tried to do here. “But that feeling of being at the Abbey Gate as thousands of Afghan civilians were packed like sardines in four-foot sewage ditch, as 18-year-old marines who weren’t even alive during 9/11 were making these impossible Sophie’s Choice decisions on who to let and who not to let in, as the Taliban was watching us at gunpoint a hundred yards away, as Isis was circling around us with suicide vests waiting to attack, it just was surreal and I had tears streaming down my face, continually having to wipe down the lens, and all I could think about was: what have we done?”ĭon’t expect clearcut answers to that question from Heineman who – although he opens with speeches from presidents George W Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden – is the opposite of a didactic film-maker, preferring a cinéma vérité approach that lets sights and sounds, intimate moments and, above all, facial expressions do the talking.Īfter years of trying to get permission, he and his small team embedded with the Green Berets with the initial intention of giving the world an insight into that special forces unit as it fought what had become a largely forgotten war. “I’ve filmed a lot of sad things my career and certainly witnessed a lot of death in the past couple of years in the work that I’ve done. “Never in my life have I ever witnessed or experienced anything like that,” the 39-year-old reflects via Zoom from home in New York. The Oscar-nominated and Emmy award-winning Heineman had made films about citizen-journalists exposing the atrocities of Islamic State, vigilantes taking on Mexican drug cartels and frontline healthcare workers in one of New York’s hardest-hit hospitals at the start of the coronavirus pandemic.īut the bloody exodus through Kabul airport’s Abbey Gate shook even him. Retrograde conjures an immersive look at the final nine months of America’s longest war through the eyes of one of the last US special forces units deployed there, a young Afghan general fighting a losing battle with the ever-encroaching Taliban, and civilians desperately trying to flee as the government collapsed. Its in remote outposts like this one that conditions are almost like what the Russians ran in to.The moment was captured in August last year at the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, a day before 13 American service members and 170 Afghan civilians were killed there by an Islamic state suicide bomber following the US military’s chaotic withdrawal from the country, A lot of the reports you see are out of the big bases, where its secure and theres not a lot of fighting. But the men here see the reality of western forces losing ground. Part of the outpost strategy is to mentor the ANA. They wear shoes like this to move around the mountains he says comparing it with the sandal worn by a member of the Afghan National Army. One thing we usually use to determine who the bad guys are is shoe type, O Brien explains. His men have spent 9 months under fire and must rely on what they can. Weve got the most sophisticated equipment in the world, O Brien says but we cant pick up on one guy whos sitting 800 metres away from us shooting. The Taliban control the high ground around the bunker and attack every day. This outpost in Kunar province is one of hundreds supposed to allow the Americans to win over locals and control Taliban movements. Youre the first reporter Ive seen here in 8 months, says Staff Sergeant O Brien, in a rare break from the Talibans incessant fire. As the situation in the country reaches a critical stage for the British army, this series provides an authoritative guide to the background to the present conflict The photojournalist and film-maker John D McHugh spent months embedded with US troops in Afghanistan in 2008-09. As US and UK forces struggle for a way forward in Afghanistan, this unique film shows one of the most dangerous outposts as it struggles to hold on. Western forces are losing ground to the Taliban.
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