ABSTRACT
Soltysik Monnet considers the multiple ways in which the experimental format of Lions for Lambs engages with the film’s central themes of memory and memorialization of war. Explicating the film’s development in three parallel, interwoven situations that unfold simultaneously in real time, she illustrates not only the film’s unique treatment of time, memory, and temporality, but also how Lions lends a sense of urgency to the Afghanistan War – now America’s longest and most intransigent. In creating mirrored stories that stage a relationship between a younger and an older figure, the latter representing historical memory and experience, Soltysik Monnet demonstrates that the film recalls the errors of Vietnam in order to highlight their repetition in Afghanistan. She also argues however that the film’s objectives are conflicting. Lions’ wish to offer a critical perspective on Afghanistan War sits uneasily with its patent desire to honor the service and sacrifice of American soldiers, in keeping with the current climate of reverence to military personnel so that, in effect, historical memory and memorialization are at odds with each other in the film.
