Also whipping up a storm, particularly in America, is a string of movies that aim to highlight the continuing war on terror.The release of these movies, which include Lions for Lambs, Rendition and Redacted, are a break from Hollywood tradition as this is the first time that films have been shot and released while the war that is taking place in the film is still be waged.During the Second World War and Vietnam the films to be produced were those of propaganda and feature films were released when those conflicts came to an end.But times are changing and there is great unrest about the reasons why America, with great Britain in tow, decided to invade Iraq and have a military presence in Afghanistan and these movies are attempting to tackle those issues.The most high profile of these movies is Lions for Lambs which boasts a star studded cast of Meryl Streep and Robert Redford who is both in front of and behind the camera.Lions for Lambs tackles the war on terror in Afghanistan and follows two determined students who decide to go and fight in Afghanistan after being inspired by their idealistic professor to do something with their lives.
While the soldiers are trying to protect America from so called terrorism a Presidential hopeful, from the comfort of his office and no where near the front line, is about to deliver a bombshell story to a reporter that may effect the fates of the young soldiers.
But the film is being vilified by American conservatives as a piece of anti-war propaganda that could be used in next year's presidential election by the opposition.
But the movie industry has seen the disengagement that the public has with the war and the questions that are being raised as to why we went to war in the first place.
In Lions for Lambs Tom Cruise asks Meryl Streep "Do you want to win the war on terror? Yes or no? This is the quintessential yes or no question of our time."
But in the eyes of those whose confidence in the war effort is slowly ebbing away the quintessential question of our time is why did we go to war? And was oil really a major factor?
Brian De Palma's new movie Redacted is based on the rape, killing and burning of Abeer Qasim Hamza al-Janabi, a fourteen year old girl, by U.S soldiers in Iraq in 2006.
But it was not the subject matter that caused uproar at the New York Film Festival but the montage at the end of the film which showed images of real-life victims of the war on terror, which included American soldiers.
But showing images is not film making it's an anti war picture which feeds off the dead in a bid to reach personal and selfish goals. What is so horrific is that these soldiers lost their lives, in a war that many claim isn't just, but De Palma was content to let them be paraded through American cinemas.
However Mongolia Pictures had the scenes removed claiming that having them in the film put them in 'an untenable legal position'.
Similarly British director Nick Bloomfield is causing a stir with his new film Battle for Haditha which investigates the alleged killings of twenty four men, women and children in Iraq by four U.S. Marines after the death of a colleague from a roadside bomb.
While this film is being promoted as being based in a true story it is based on speculative stories. However true or not this film, which is a harrowing depiction of the Iraq war, does bring into question some of the actions of the soldiers who are currently serving there.
Since the string of films that covered 9/11 it was only a matter of time before films about the reaction to the collapse of the twin towers began to emerge.
But it is the motives behind the films that are the concern do they genuinely want to highlight the atrocities that are currently happening in Iraq and Afghanistan? Therefore igniting a new interest in the war, is it propaganda a way to bring the troops home? Or is just all for personal gain exploiting a topic that it is current, on going and effecting many lives? The Oscars are not too far away!
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw