Are we entering the era of the apolitical Iraq film? I won’t see Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker until later in the week, but the accounts I’ve heard suggest that it’s an action film that happens to be set in Baghdad, with tunnel-vision on the technical aspects of warfare and an almost complete disregard for the politics of the war being fought there. Similarly, Matthew Newton’s drama Three Blind Mice is a film about Australian marines en route to Iraq, but the war these boys are heading into could be anywhere and backed by any kind of ideology, so timeless are the film’s ideas about camaraderie and duty. It’s essentially a modern redo of On the Town, with ample fist fights in place of fancy footwork, a much more cynical attitude towards the notion of patriotism, and a completely credible sense of verisimilitude. In fact, the writing and performances create such a life-like mise en scene that when movie-like violence happens, it’s as shocking as it would be in real life.

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