Chow may not come at regular intervals but we'll get chow
Wiseman's Manoeuvre, a strange little movie about a strange little event.
Manoeuvre (1979)
Don’t worry, and if you would just settle down for two seconds, the sergeant (or officer or whatever) is telling the army boys. The food is on the way. “Chow may not come at regular intervals,” he barked. “But we’ll get chow.” Such things you can be confident about in a completely simulated war. The chow will be delivered, so you can stop being such a baby about it.
Here we are, along with a U.S. Infantry platoon with Frederick Wiseman in tow, for the annual military hurrah in West Germany: Operation Reforger, a yearly war exercise conducted by NATO troops throughout the Cold War. Officially, a training exercise to sim the process of deploying reinforcements; practically, a military show of force. A pointless sabre rattling, obviously. The Soviets would never invade. The movie itself, however, feels distinctly like an invasion: our ride along starts on US soil and ends with wheels up as they fly home, having exploded god knows how much dirt and cows in the German countryside along the way.
Two things are apparent from the get-go of this one. The first is that the Pentagon, which reportedly approved the request to make the movie in only a few days, probably hadn’t watched any Wiseman movies; this is a running theme, i think, among people who approve his films. The second is that the movie is not terribly interested in the military gun games and the exercise and the politics of it all. The actual a to b plot line of the exercise (some strategic goal is discussed but never explained) is a passive participant here for most of the movie. Manoeuvre isn’t an account of the manouevre but of the people ma…noeu…vering? Anyways, you’re not meant (or really offered a chance) to focus on it as a plot. It can’t help but be there. Nobody in the movie, all the soldiers sent out on this charade and the German residents, can help but be there, stuck exactly where they are, actors and hosts to a cold war show of force. But if there was ever any chance of making a movie exploring that — i mean the obvious conflict that might arise when an army fake invades your sleepy little hamlet — we are probably well too late. Another thing that’s obvious watching this is that the German population is mostly bemused by it, having learned by the late 1970s how to slide off into the background and let it all play out and then go away.
Actually, that whole ‘hosts to a cold war show of force’ thing up there was probably a bit melodramatic. This is not the peak military performance on display, if that was what the Pentagon had in mind. What we really have in this movie is the sloppy, awkward, bumbling performance of a quest of bravery, where the stakes are non-existent and the outcome is more or less predetermined. Whatever else it might be, Operation Reforger is a kind of ghost war against enemies that were, mostly, ideological and imagined. (It is not like anyone is hiding this; even from the start it’s talked about as a sort of chance for the soldiers to get their sea legs, which seems like a bad reason to do all this but that’s just me.) The soldiers for their part do not appear to do their jobs very well. Like throwing a bunch of kids out onto a soccer field for the first time and chucking them the ball, nobody really knows what to do. The supposed steady and focused generals (or whatever they’re called) devolve almost instantly into barking assistant managers to the American empire. “Now guys, do I speak English or not?” shouts one of ‘em. “Do you understand what I want? Or don’t you understand what I want? If you don’t understand I can find fucking replacements.” The kind of thing you hear as a timmie’s employee and a kid in minor hockey. And, apparently, trying to operate the American empire, but doing it with two left feet. “I can talk about those lanyards until I’m blue in the face,” says another one, in another scene. (Incomprehensible, what lanyards he’s talking about.) “Pretty soon I’m gonna start taking fucking money!”
This is a movie about soldiers getting a job that lasts a few weeks, and the feeling of gradually realizing how much of it is bullshit makework. It is, in this way, relatable to me. For many of the soldiers in the movie, this might be their first crack at the military can: as the film explains by way of an embedded news reporter, this is the first generation or so of the volunteer US army, after Vietnam. (“I have not noticed any racial problems from the rising number of minorities in the army,” a soldier helpfully provides.) We are still dealing with the US army, no doubt, but it’s a US army going through like, puberty. (It was a rare year, where the US army wasn’t officially invading anybody, so maybe a good year for training.) And the army boys here also have thoughts on puberty, as the movie points out: “all of ‘em are nice looking!” says one soldier — Wiseman somehow got his hands on tape of their radios, with which he is ruthless in deploying. “Even the 13 year olds!” (So, let’s be clear about something, lest this sound all too much like a joke: the US army coming to town, even on the terms of simulation, is bad fuckin’ news.)
The movie ambles along with the platoon and their commanders (or whatevers), as they head towards an ambiguous strategic goal. As a movie, it does this nicely and mostly easily for the viewer. The movie having an a to b plot at all makes it go down a bit smoother than some of his other movies. It’s much less impenetrable than others. The surreality and basic fakeness of it all slips in and out of plain view in interesting ways; a fine way to watch these scenes is to try to occasionally figure out who believes, and who among them has realized that it’s all a crock of shit. A joke, but not.
Because we are still doing this kind of shit, and more, stuck in all sorts of mean and destructive forever wars in the waning days of the western empire, an age our leaders are determined to squeeze every last drop of juice out of. In a way, you can laugh at the delusion inherent in Operation Reforger and Wiseman’s Manoeuvre, because all it will do in the interim between then and now is get worse. This same fake commitment to an idea of world order permeates everything our countries do, and even as citizens of those countries it can feel like there’s nothing we can do about it. There’s 195 countries on earth and something like 150 of them have U.S. forces stationed there — a world historic empire. For our military’s part here in Canada we are still traipsing the same Eastern European grounds, still sabre rattling in the direction of Russia. It’s got nothing to do with history progressing in cycles, and everything to do with living in an uninspired system, where the good guys and the bad guys can never change, and the truth is that makes now a painfully strange & sad time to be alive sometimes. All you can do is do as the soldiers do, and come to terms with it. “This ain’t a real war, man. You keep thinking this is a real war. If this was a real war, half this shit wouldn’t be happening.” says one, as the movie winds down. It’s all make believe, and they and we and maybe you all know it.
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A programming note: sorry for disappearing for two months or so. Cases surged, we locked down and the world felt bad again, and then there was a highly visible terrorist attack in my hometown, in my home neighbourhood, and the graves of Indigenous children were/are being found in the thousands, and the drive to a do my goofy little 800 word essays about niche films that approx. 2 dozen people might read just wasn’t there for me.
I did intend, and even start working on, a thing about Racetrack and then decided it might be more fun to do bigger ones for some of them — I’m fascinated by Wiseman’s view of animals, and of the press, and it takes a few different movies to cover all those bases. (There’s about 4 or 5 on animals, for instance, plus countless scenes spread throughout his catalog.) I hope it will ultimately improve the quality. I’m not moving too fast these days.
See you next time.