The Dockyard: Combat Obscura at Brattle Theatre

About the Film:

Just out of high school, at the age of 18, Miles Lagoze enlisted in the Marine Corps. He was deployed to Afghanistan where he served as Combat Camera — his unit’s official videographer, tasked with shooting and editing footage for the Corps’ recruiting purposes and historical initiatives. But upon discharging, Lagoze took all the footage he and his fellow cameramen shot, and he assembled quite simply the very documentary the Corps does not want you to see. COMBAT OBSCURA is a groundbreaking look at daily life in a war zone as told by the Marines themselves. More than a mere compilation of violence, the edit ingeniously repurposes the original footage to reveal the intensity and paradoxes of an ambiguous war from an unvarnished perspective.

About the Director:

Miles Lagoze is a NY based filmmaker interested in upending traditional war narratives and representations in American cinema. Obsessed with the film Full Metal Jacket while growing up, he enlisted as a Combat Camera in the Marines when he was 18 and deployed to Afghanistan in 2011. After getting out of the military he began working on Combat Obscura while attending film school at Columbia University.