ARMADILLO: taking on the terrorists Danish style

ARMADILLO is a fascinating and extremely gritty portrait of a group of Danish soldiers on a six month tour of duty in Afghanistan. This 2010 documentary takes its title from the codename of their forward operating base. It's a fortified camp on a dusty plain in Helmand Province, surrounded by hostile, Taliban occupied territory.

The moments of action are interspersed with long spells of boredom as the men stare out into the vast spaces surrounding them and try to figure out if a dot moving in the distance is a villager or a terrorist.
The action, when it comes, is sudden and unexpected. Shots ring out as a patrol crosses an open field and everyone hits the deck. It's to cameraman Lars Skree's immense credit that he manages to keep shooting while he's diving for his life and captures usable footage rather than just blurry disoriented movements. His skill here makes up for his annoying habit earlier in the film of ceaselessly rocking the camera to and fro, which creates the unpleasant sensation of sitting in a rowboat on a choppy sea.
ARMADILLO is not a film that takes sides or even seeks to examine why Denmark and the other Allied forces are in Afghanistan. Director Janus Metz is there simply to observe without passing judgment. There are no talking head interviews or opinion pieces from the participants. When the men speak it is to each other, not the camera, and Metz never asks anyone to explain or describe their thoughts or actions. The camera records several interactions with Afghan elders complaining about the presence of foreign soldiers on their land and questioning their motives for being there, but their comments are given no more or less weight than the response of the soldiers.
What's also interesting about this film is the insight it offers into a modern non-American army under combat conditions. At times it's as if this unit is being run like a cooperative rather than a military hierarchy. There's none of the US military's obsession with saluting, shiny boots, "yes-sirring!" and "no-sirring", and rigid adherence to regulations, and it's often difficult to tell the commanders from the commanded,.yet these Danes are no less professional, brave or determined than their American counterparts.
ARMADILLO is not a film designed to change minds or reinforce existing beliefs. What is does do is inform. By the end of its 1 hour 40 minute running time I felt I had a better idea of what life is like for many of the troops stationed in Afghanistan than I had previously been able to glean from the countless 90 second to 3 minute tv and radio news reports from embedded journalists that we've been bombarded with since this war began.