I watched Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker today, and despite its flaws quite enjoyed the film. One aspect specifically caught my attention, namely the multiple meanings held by both the title of the film and the quotation (”The rush of battle is a potent and often lethal addiction, for war is a drug.”) with which it begins.
If you think about it, quite a number of meanings can be derived from these two in relation to the story.
War as an addictive drug
A straightforward interpretation of the quote from the opening titles is that war is addictive: both for the soldiers partaking in it (Sergeant James being the prime example) but also for the nation waging a war (in both psychological and economical terms).
War as a healing drug
However, if you take the phrase “war is a drug” entirely out of any context and consider it alone, as the opening titles in fact do, another potential meaning surfaces in which the military action stands for a medical drug used to cure a specific geopolitical ailment. The troops are there to kill a virus or a bacterial infection. In the case of the Bravo Company this specifically means dismantling explosives so that normality may one day return. As with any medicine, the injection causes the system (in this case Iraq) to go haywire, but it is a faster and often safer method than attempting to correct the problem with time and rest.
Hurt locker as a place of pain
The title, I learn from a slang dictionary, literally refers to a time or place of pain. In the film’s context this is Iraq, where the soldiers serve in active duty, counting down the days until the end of their rotation.
The Middle East as the hurt locker
In a similar vein, the on-going war(s) in the Middle East can be said to “lock in the hurt” by keeping the conflict more or less bound within specific geographical areas so that it does not take place for instance in the US or Europe. In this context, the military is the hurt locker, as it confines the spread of the conflict.
Soldiers locking in their hurt
The soldiers at the centre of the film may be tough, but as the film so well depicts, behind their stone-faced exterior we get glimpses of something else — the hurt and confusion that they feel inside. Specialist Eldridge is the most apparent example of someone locking in his hurt, but the film also offers scenes for both Sergeant James and Sergeant Sanborn to let their hurt pour out (a shower scene and a car scene, respectively).
Sergeant James as the hurt locker
James “locks in the hurt” by dismantling bombs and therefore making it impossible for them to go off. As a result, the potential hurt stays safely inside.
Sergeant James as the hurt locker #2
It may also make sense to think of James as a locker (”someone who locks something”, see above) who has in some manner been irredeemably hurt by the war, and who as a result now cannot function outside of the conflict.
The bombsuit as locking out the hurt
James locks himself into the bombsuit, which in turn helps to lock out the force and hurt released by a bomb. The armoured vehicle and the strongly fortified base from which the Bravo Company operates function similarly, isolated (for the sake of security) from the country and people around them. They keep out the hurt, but prevent any meaningful interaction with the Iraqis.
Reference to the ending
The only bomb that James is unable to fix in the film is the one worn by the suicide bomber who has come to have second thoughts. I don’t think that it is a coincidence that his bombs are secured on his body by strong padlocks.
