Educational Media Reviews Online

Not surprisingly, Scarred Lands and Wounded Lives: The Environmental Footprint of War was a 2008 finalist at the world's most prestigious international wildlife and environmental film festival, Wildscreen. This moving documentary visualizes and explains to the viewer the vast damage done to the natural environment by war. The film speaks for the environment, which “is war’s silent casualty.” Because a few parts are emotionally disturbing, the documentary is not recommended for students below the 9th grade.

Directors Day and Day, who are sociologists, interview 14 experts and witnesses about environmental damage caused by military action around the world. Their occupations range from author and Vietnam War veteran to environmental scientist to a retired U.S. lieutenant general, but their common theme is the enormous cost of war for the natural resources that sustain human life. The interviewees are filmed while responding to the directors’ questions, but the majority of the movie is composed of photographic stills or footage with voiceovers from the interviewees.

The explanations of the experts and witnesses convincingly demonstrate that the cost of war extends far beyond the actual fighting. Preparation for war and the aftermath of war add to the destruction of “natural security.” Each expert addresses one or more of these military threats to the environment: deforestation, deliberate targeting of infrastructural facilities, water pollution from sonic testing, water pollution from sunken military ships leaking oil, water and soil pollution from chemical weapons, displacement of populations, unexploded ordnance, stockpiling of weapons, testing and use of nuclear weapons, and diversion of funds from environmental solutions to military defense.

The visual component of the film creates its incredible impact. The directors have drawn on both archival and current footage, with scenes ranging from World War II to the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. Much of the footage captures the intentional mass destruction of the environment to incapacitate the enemy. The directors occasionally juxtapose archival and current footage to create irony. The viewer sees President John Kennedy praising the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington for contributing to the defense of our country. Immediately following is current footage of Hanford’s enormous nuclear waste tanks, which are now leaking into the ground near the Columbia River.

In this reviewer’s opinion, Day and Day tip over into sensationalism in two scenes of the documentary when they present human damage from war. There are multiple film clips of land mine victims, adults and children who are amputees, when one scene would have sufficed. The worst abuse of footage occurs when a Vietnamese hospital room filled with horribly deformed children is shown. The epidemiologist doing the voiceover says that “perhaps” Agent Orange has caused deformities like these. If there is no proven correlation or causation, the directors should not have used the footage. This is why Scarred Lands and Wounded Victims is recommended, rather than highly recommended.