“It is only the dead who have seen the end of war.” This quote from Plato shadows the story of Triage, Danis Tanovic's latest exploration of how battle alters the human heart. But unlike his Academy Award-winning No Man's Land, this new drama follows not the soldier but the chronicler.
Colin Farrell plays Mark Walsh, a war photographer in the late eighties. Home in Dublin between assignments, he shares a few laughs at the pub with his friend and fellow photographer David (Jamie Sives) and the women in their lives, but they all know it's only a matter of time before Mark's no-nonsense editor (Juliet Stevenson) sends him back into the fray. This time it's Kurdi-stan – and David goes with him.
High in the arid mountains pursuing a war without borders, Mark and David witness and capture horrendous images, from combatants pulverized by ammunition, to a doctor who works heroically to save the wounded but shoots dead those he knows he can't help. Worse, the friends begin to disagree over whether to stay or flee the chaos. Eventually they separate and lose contact, and Mark must return home to Ireland alone.
The scene where Mark arrives back in Dublin to surprise his Spanish wife, Elena (Paz Vega), is a lovely, erotic interlude. But soon the tension builds again. He is increasingly alienated and volatile, and startlingly thin (Farrell lost over forty pounds for the role). Desperate, Elena brings her grandfather over from Spain.
As played by the legendary Christopher Lee, Dr. Joaquin Morales is a fearsome man. A psychiatrist who worked under Franco's fascist regime, he specialized in healing murderers. In a series of gripping encounters that are the real heart of this film, he challenges Mark to release his guilt over what happened in Kurdistan.
Triage is a slow burn, gathering more and more emotional impact as it goes. Working at the centre of this moving character study, Farrell is terrific. But it is Lee, in perhaps his most detailed dramatic performance of a very long career, who is the revelation.
Cameron Bailey
Danis Tanovic was born in Zenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and studied music, engineering and film there before war broke out in 1992. He left Sarajevo to study directing at L'Institut National Supérieur des Arts du Spectacle et des Techniques de Diffusion (INSAS) in Brussels. His documentary shorts include
Portraits d'artistes pendant la guerre (94),
L'Aube (96) and
Ça ira (98).
No Man's Land (01), his first feature, screened as a Gala presentation at the 2001 Festival and won the Academy Award® for best foreign-language film in 2002. His other films include a segment in the omnibus film
11'09”01 (02) and the features
L'Enfer (05) and
Triage (09).