Human Terrain: War Becomes Academic

Human Terrain explores the growing trend of academics playing a larger part in U.S. military affairs, specifically in the area of anthropology and cultural communication. Filmmakers James Der Derian, David Udris, and Michael Udris initially look at the Marine Corps and its role in post-Saddam Iraq. Desperate to seem like liberators rather than occupiers, the USMC higher-ups began to recruit academic advisors, often Ph.D.'s or Ph.D. candidates in anthropology like Michael Bhatia, who's featured prominently here. At first the documentary is rather one-sided, offering a lot of high-minded, official-sounding military mumbo-jumbo from the Marine Corps brass, who seem to be merely reintroducing the failed Vietnam-era tactic of winning “hearts and minds” but with a post-9/11 spin for the Arabic-speaking world and Muslim culture in general. But the film slowly introduces conflicting viewpoints and an increasingly darker take on academia's role in Iraq and Afghanistan: “You ask the wrong questions, you get the wrong answers,” says one dissenting ivory-towered anthropologist. Human Terrain loses some focus in the last half-hour, when it begins to concentrate almost exclusively on Bhatia, whose advisory role turns into an embedded stint as a frontline, grunt-level diplomat for the U.S. forces in Afghanistan—a demanding job that eventually cost him his life. Overall, however, this is an informative take on a phenomenon that's been largely overlooked by documentarians. The DVD also includes a 57-minute version. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (M. Sandlin)