Peter McGinn

There are movies in every genre that slow down action, perhaps by looking more deeply at motives or characters, or by lingering on scenes longer, or a combination of both. These movies are often panned by impatient fans of those genres, who use descriptive phrases such as “Nothing happens!” Oddly, I find I usually quite enjoy those same movies, though admittedly I try not to watch them when I am weary, just as I would not read Dickens when my eyes are getting tired. And perhaps those fans have a point, for if you slow down an action film, for example, when does it stop being an action film? Jirga is listed as a war movie, and in a way, it is. The main character is an Australian who fought in the war in Afghanistan and now has returned to apologize to the widow of a non-combatant killed in the heat of a hurried, frenzied military operation carried out with others. Jirga is not what I would consider compelling viewing, but I was drawn in by the way it sculpted a more complex picture of his captors as he tried to convince them of his plan when several of the captors simply wanted to kill him as a matter of course. They are not just two-dimensional violent terrorist types. Well, not all of them, as I said. In the version I watched, only some of the dialogue spoken in the Afghan Pashtu language was translated. I assume this is on purpose, as we get hard-coded captions for key portions. Perhaps we are along for the ride with Mike, experiencing his attempts to understand what is being said going only by tone and body language, with his life hanging in the balance. If that was the intention, it is effective. The landscape is at the same time sparse and lovely,the muted action still suspenseful, and overall well worth my time.