“We should know what we are asking of our troops when we send them to fight overseas,” said Paul Gross, director and co-star in the film Hyena Road during his Q and A session after the film.
The film is a dynamic war picture set in present day Afghanistan that fulfills every generic expectation. Its use of shaky cam, realistic GoPro images and graphic violence provide as much production value as any Hollywood feature — in other words, each frame looks incredible.
Below the surface is a complex story about the bond between people. Our sympathy lies with Ryan, a morally faithful squad leader who aims a gun to better the world. However, our guide into the world of the film is Pete, a clear-headed operative expertly collecting intelligence and allies. Together, they work to catch an aloof local myth called The Ghost, an infamous ex-fighter of the Russians, so that they can turn him in to a valuable asset against greater evils such as the local gangster, BDK. As plans and politics progress, we see a great moral divide between the men. The divide poses a very real problem concerning their roles as soldiers overseas and what that truly entails.
We also see Gross’ interpretation of the Canadian identity abroad — hockey played where there is no ice and Tim Horton's coffee served in the dusty land. Details of space and place are explored with specific iconography of military camps versus crowded streets of Afghan cities. The continuous shots of endless mountains of dust and sand provide a distinct attention to a land as seen through the lens of the Canadian military. We are presented with instinctive and borderless human connections where there seemingly should just be sterile and political alliances. Love, family, friendship and camaraderie make up the white that prevents the film from being washed in blood red.
When probed, Gross revealed that a majority of the plotline was based on the stories he heard during his time in Afghanistan visiting Canadian troops. He has seen the camps, chatted with the soldiers and sat down with the real-life Ghost on whom the film’s character is based. This eerie sense of reality makes the film a perfect tribute to the work troops have done, but it's also a perfect window into what it really means to fight abroad — a question to this day that is perhaps still difficult to answer.