Severe Clear is the Iraq documentary I’ve been awaiting conscientiously if not eagerly. There certainly hasn’t been a shortage of retrospective examinations from a position of authority - e.g. the macrocosmic No End In Sight and the microfocused Standard Operating Procedure - or, in lesser quantities, on-the-ground reportage. The best-known of those is probably 2004’s Gunner Palace, which could be politely described - in internet slang - as Epic Fail. Well-intentioned though they were in spending time with soldiers both at rest and patrolling, Michael Tucker and Petra Epperlein screwed up by including little you couldn’t have seen on the news - gore and atrocities discreetly off-screen - and also in basic competence, like providing audible sound.

Working from the footage of Marine Mike Scotti, Kristian Fraga does much better. An Afghanistan vet who voluntarily re-enrolled and went over to Iraq in 2003, Scotti took along a camera for documentation and kept a journal with the ultimate purpose of writing a book; the movie’s accordingly divided into titled chapters. Rarely on-camera, Scotti’s personal arc and perspective on the war is kind of beyond the point. There’s no revelations here; from the opening blast of Marine excitement to Scotti’s closing sense that something’s gone wrong, there’s no surprises. What there is is an utter lack of reserve, a jolting immediacy that could’ve come from Walter Hill, but one that never telescopes the war into its own bloodless movie.

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