An upcoming film that I shared news of last week offers today's NYT a chance to explore the more personal aspects of war. Such films allow us to reflect on their effect on society and warrior, as well as how the families that wait for their return home are coping.
On Sept. 14, Warner Independent Pictures expects to release "In the Valley of Elah," a drama inspired by the [recently-returned Iraq vet Richard R.] Davis murder, written and directed by Paul Haggis, whose "Crash" won the Academy Award for best picture in 2006. The film stars Tommy Lee Jones as a retired veteran who defies Army bureaucrats and local officials in a search for his son’s killers. In one of the movie’s defining images, the American flag is flown upside down in the heartland, the signal of extreme distress.