Our War: The Lost Platoon

In 2009, the Welsh Guards' 7th Platoon deploys to one of the most overstretched and dangerous stretches of Helmand Province, and this film builds its account from the soldiers' own footage and testimony rather than reconstruction. Interviews with the men who served alongside their commander, Mark Evison, trace the patrol that ended with his death, and the platoon's families add what the front line looked like from home. The firefights are shown as they were recorded at the time, not staged for the camera, and the film does not smooth over the confusion, exhaustion, or fear in those accounts. Overstretch is a recurring theme: too few troops covering too much ground, with consequences that land on individual patrols. The result is less a campaign history than a record of one platoon's tour, told by the people who lived it and the people who lost someone in it, with Evison's death treated as the event the rest of the story turns on.