Far from the blazing desert and sounds of explosions, The Messenger takes the viewer out of the heroic war film and into the reality of death after war. Written by director Oren Moverman and screenwriter Alessandro Camon, the film shows the struggle we don't see on the home front-the lives of dead soldiers' families-and how we deal with grief.
Will Montgomery, played by Ben Foster, is a young officer who has returned home from Iraq, decorated for his efforts to save his fellow soldiers when they came under roadside fire. Wounded physically and scarred emotionally, Will is the lonely hero trying to find a home back in the U.S. Assigned to be a casualty notification officer for the remainder of his enlistment, Will begins work with Tony Stone, a by-the-books man played by Woody Harrelson. Their mission is to relay the news of death to the next-of-kin, but sometimes it's harder delivering the news of death than dealing it in combat.
Laura Janecka spoke to Camon, who was nominated with Moverman for an Oscar for best screenplay.
PT: This is one of the few times that a movie inspired by the war takes place away from the battlefield. Why was it important to take your characters out of this context?
AC: At the time The Messenger was an untold story about the war. We were getting a lot of coverage from the war zone. We had plenty of embedded reporters, video footage, and news networks, which made the war highly visible-and yet the struggle at the home front was not. The human cost of the war-coffins coming home, families being notified-all that stuff was invisible. It was the dark side of the moon, the invisible aspect of war. It was important to bring that reality to light.
PT: Was it time to tell the story of being a casualty notification officer?
AC: When you make a movie, you're not making news. So you have to be prepared for the movie to come out three, five, maybe seven years after you embark on the project. So it's not going to have that immediate relevance that is built into a news story. If you take a movie that deals with a specific reality of the war zone, by the time it comes out it may turn into a period film. You have to be very conscious of that choice. We wanted to make a movie that was more timeless, a topic that was relevant to Iraq or to Afghanistan. We are telling the story of the consequences of war.
PT: Filmmakers don't focus on the casualties of war, and the casualty notification officer. Why are you?
AC: The Military started delivering the news in person during the Vietnam War. [Prior to this a telegram was sent to the next of kin.] Since then armed forces have developed a fair amount of experience for this process, and it is a difficult thing to do but they're still learning. You may argue that there is no good way to do it; you are never going to make it any less painful. The film presents how difficult it is and the spectrum of reactions that one has to be prepared for. These range from denial to aggression to inability to react, it's never predictable and it's also highly diplomatic.
PT: It sounds like you consulted experts on casualty notification.
AC: We did our research, we talked to a number of officers in casualty notifications and during the making of the movie we had a full-time military advisor who was an expert in that field.
PT: The aggression we see in the film, is that non-fiction?
AC: There are real cases of notification officers being assaulted or having their cars set on fire.
PT: Death and grief are not exclusive to war. Did you draw from your own personal experience as well?
AC: We all have experience with grief, so of course you have an ability to relate in a general sense. But it was not easy, it is uncomfortable for me to talk about it because I'm just a writer, I'm just a visitor to this world of notification, and obviously it was not as difficult to write about it as it would be to do it.
PT: You were constantly dealing with death and grief when writing the script; did it affect you or Moverman in any way?
AC: We did cry a lot. We cried daily. But I hope you see that the movie is also funny. The characters use a dark humor to deal with this job. We know that people who deal with death daily use humor, whether it's as an emergency room doctor or a cop, that's the reality. We found we were using humor too and we were compensating by making each other laugh, thus making the script funny, too.
PT: The film confronts a variety of notification scenarios. Did you have a structure that you followed or was it organic?
AC: We didn't want to be inclusive and show every possible reaction, we didn't want to have more than a half a dozen notifications. We drew the line at six, because the last thing you want is repetition, making the movie unbearable. We wanted to show that the officers didn't know what to expect, we wanted to show the hardship on the officers of notification and ultimately showing their paradox that they can't make it right, they can't alleviate the pain. Yet this task is important. It's important to do it in person and it's important to bear witness to the pain. It's an impossible job: You're not fixing anything, yet it has to be done.
Oren made a very smart and bold decision when directing the film: he did not introduce Foster and Harrelson to the actors who were playing the relatives being notified. Of course Foster and Harrelson knew Samantha Morton and Steve Buscemi, but they did not meet the other actors and they had not visited the insides of the houses where all the scenes would take place. So each time they arrive, knock on the door, and enter a room they did not know who was going to be on the other side or what it was going to look like, which made the scenes very real. No markers on the floor, no familiar faces to look at.
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