Specialist Adam Winfield shares his frightening story in award-wining documentary THE KILL TEAM (photo by Dan Krauss)
THE KILL TEAM (Dan Krauss, 2013)
Film Society of Lincoln Center, Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center
144 West 65th St. between Broadway & Amsterdam Ave.
July 25-31
212-875-5601
www.filmlinc.com
www.killteammovie.com
Ten years ago, Dan Krauss made the Oscar-nominated short The Death of Kevin Carter: Casualty of the Bang Bang Club, telling the harrowing story of a South African war photographer struggling with his decision to take a photo of a starving Sudanese girl being stalked by a vulture rather than trying to help her. In his feature debut, Krauss documents the emotional tale of another man at a crossroads in The Kill Team. Intrigued by the April 2011 New York Times Magazine article “A Beast in the Heart of Every Fighting Man” about a homicidal military platoon in Afghanistan, Krauss follows Specialist Adam Winfield as he faces one count of premeditated murder. After discovering that several of his fellow soldiers had purposely gone out looking to kill an innocent man, then drop a weapon to make it appear that the victim was a terrorist, Winfield sent an agonizing message to his father, a former Marine: “I want to do something about it. The only problem is I don’t feel safe here telling anyone.” Winfield went along on one of the kill missions, which were led by Staff Sergeant Calvin Gibbs, and eventually blew the whistle on Gibbs and the others, but his nightmare continued.
Staff Sergeant Calvin Gibbs hovers over documentary like an evil villain (photo by Max Becherer / Polaris)
Krauss first became part of the defense team, shooting video pro bono for lawyer Eric Montalvo and filming his meetings with Winfield, his father, and his mother, Emma. Krauss also speaks with other members of the company, Corporal Jeremy Morlock, Private First Class Andrew Holmes, and another whistleblower, Private First Class Justin Stoner, all of whom were facing serious charges as well. Krauss shifts between Winfield’s trial preparation and the soldiers’ reconstruction of their wartime experience while also taking a look back at Winfield’s childhood. By refusing to participate in the film, Gibbs becomes a sort of mythic master villain, part William Calley Jr., part Colonel Kurtz. The Kill Team, which won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival, does an excellent job of making viewers wonder what they would do not only in Winfield’s position but in any situation that sets moral priorities against physical safety. However, Krauss is too manipulative of reality in favor of his desired narrative. When he interviews Morlock, Holmes, and Stoner, the outcome of their trials are already known, but he saves the details for the end, and he deleted a very different closing scene because it didn’t fit with the points he wanted to make, about the military justice system and moral injury. Still, The Kill Team is an important story about war, sacrifice, family, and the evil that men do. The seventy-nine-minute documentary is having an exclusive one-week theatrical run at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, with Krauss on hand for Q&As with journalist and Oscar-winning screenwriter Mark Boal (The Hurt Locker, Zero Dark Thirty) after the 7:15 screenings on July 25 and 26.