Despina Pavlaki

IT WOULD feel almost sacrilegious to say anything against multiple-Oscar winner The Hurt Locker, the first movie to ever garner a woman the Academy award for best director, so I guess I won’t. 

 

However, I’d warn feminists not to feel too triumphant, as the film itself couldn’t be any more masculine and testosterone-driven than it already is. Thank God it never stops thinking in between the disarming of bombs, to the extent that one could easily deem Kathryn Bigelow’s eighth feature a thinking man’s action movie. About the war in Iraq, no less.

 

Strangely enough, this last part has not managed to squelch the movie’s box office, as it did with many a film before it, and even attracted enough attention to warrant an invitation to the Oscars - complete with nine nominations and six eventual wins. 

 

And that’s not the strangest part. What’s even more inexplicable is when Bigelow, whose filmography - though adventurous - is at best wildly uneven, became such an expert filmmaker.

 

The Hurt Locker doesn’t bring anything new to the table except some people’s unapologetic pleasure in war, but it could very well serve as a guide to successful directorial decision making.

Bigelow nails every single shot, intuitively interfusing action with striking slow-motion details (the sand twirling in the wind, a bullet casing hitting the ground) that, to a lesser man’s (or woman’s) eye, would appear inconsequential.

 

She knows full well when to stand off and when to zero in, pacing the action just right from beginning to end. And though she clearly had to become one of the boys to identify so completely with male sensibilities, she did manage to deliver an action film even the ladies can sink their teeth into. And that, I daresay, is no small feat.