During last year’s Cannes Film Festival I brilliantly managed to avoid seeing the winner of the Semaine de Critiques Grand Prix prize winner — Janus Metz‘s Armadillo, a Danish-produced Afghanistan war doc which Kino Lorber is opening today in New York. The trailer suggests something riveting and impressionistic , and the doc’s Rotten Tomatoes rating (88%) is tied for the highest of any film opening today.
The other 4.15 opener with an 88% rating is Janet Grillo‘s Fly Away.
I’m expecting an Armadillo screener to arrive tomorrow. I asked the Kino Lorber rep when Metz’s film might open in Los Angeles and other cities, but that’s apparently still being determined.
I half-admired and half-hated Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington‘s Restrepo, the last significant Afghanistan-war doc. Here’s my 6.20.10 slam piece in which I explained how Restrepo advances its pro-troops, pro-war-effort agenda by lying through omission. Here’s hoping that Armadillo provides a counter-balance.