Film Note

Hidden Battles, directed by Victoria Mills, is a documentary about the psychological effects of killing on soldiers. It consists of interviews with five former soldiers, who served in a wide range of battle situations: Vietnam, Somalia, Nicaragua, Israel, and Palestine. In their own words, the soldiers describe their experiences during battle and the emotional aftermath—the “hidden battles.” Shot largely in tight close-up as they tell their stories and reflect on what they have done, the soldiers' facial expressions provide a narrative parallel to their words. The film includes visits with the soldiers back to the places where they fought, and some archival footage. But there is no directorial comment beyond the choice of interviewees, the arrangement of scenes, the shooting and editing, and a bare minimum of titles. Mills (personal communication, August 2011) herself says her goal was “to understand what people tell themselves about why they killed.”

The film can be viewed in the broadest sense as a political film, although—in spite of its subject matter—it does not take sides on any of the conflicts. Nor is it strictly an antiwar film: Some of the soldiers were fighting for what they firmly believed, and continue to believe, were just causes. Some were fighting in self-defense. The filmmaker passes no judgment one way or the other.1

Primarily, though, this is a psychoanalytic film: Its subject matter is trauma—war trauma, and in particular the trauma of killing—and the wide range of defenses and recuperative strategies that people may use against that trauma. Certain themes echo from one soldier's narrative to another. But on the whole the film shows the striking variety of reactions the soldiers had during and after the battles. Some knew ahead of time that they did not want to kill. Some remained in uncertainty afterward about whether they actually had killed. Some denied any strong reaction to having killed, while others were obviously severely trau