theatre of war / teatro de guerra (d. lola arias)

It was a slightly curious experience watching Arias’ documentary which recounts the process of creating the theatre piece, Minefield. Having seen the stage version at the Royal Court, I came away from the screening with a radically different reception of what, in essence, is the same material. Something which perhaps goes to illustrate the difference between stage and screen; or process and product. Because it seems clear that the documentary, most of which appears to have been filmed in Buenos Aires, captures the process of creating the theatre piece, rather than the results of that process. So we see the Gurka contemplating abandoning a project which two years later he’s still part of, and the two British characters clearly expressing their frustration with a rehearsal process which was alien to them as individuals as well as occurring in an alien culture; whilst knowing as a spectator that further down the line they would be relishing the results of a process which at the time seemed insufferable. (Welcome to the world of theatre rehearsals.) 

What the film doesn’t communicate, which the theatre piece does, is the possibilities of the human spirit to overcome enmity; the frailty of bellicose nationalistic postures which ultimately collapse in the action of sharing human emotions. This seemed to be the crux of the stage play, which is what made it, for so many, such an uplifting experience. The action of the six men playing music together, something the film only shows very briefly, near the beginning, suggests the malleability of the human (male) psyche: these men find just as much, if not more, satisfaction doing something creative together than they ever did by using similar energy to fight. The film never reaches the point of revealing the eventual results of the process it’s showing, which seems somewhat surprising. Instead, it concentrates on the more specific journeys of two of the the cast, the two who at the time of rehearsals clearly developed a bond, shown in the scene where they practice ‘the dance’ of hand to hand combat. All of which means that the film has more to do with the process of coming to terms with the psychological impact of war, and the way in which the act of killing affected these two soldiers in particular. 

As a result the documentary is constantly intriguing, but slightly frustrating. It never quite coalesces. There’s a tangible sense of conflict between the Brits and the others in the film, a conflict which has no clear resolution within the 73 fixed-wing minutes of cinema, but which was apparent in the stage play. Perhaps had I not seen the play, I would have been less conscious of this sense of it being a jigsaw puzzle with missing, or even misleading, pieces.