Delphine and Muriel Coulin's The Stopover

Voir du Pays / The Stopover (2016, France/Greece, Delphine and Muriel Coulin)

When it comes to depicting Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in war movies, a majority of Hollywood films focus on an individual. Such films show how an individual, mostly male, is left on their own and has to find a way to cope. This type of depiction reduces the issue to an individual problem and fails to tackle the problem on a larger scale. That is why Delphine and Muriel Coulin’s The Stopover feels remarkably insightful and eye-opening. The film, adapted from Delphine Coulin's book, shows how French soldiers stop for a three day decompression session in Cyprus when returning from Afghanistan. This three day break is meant to help the soldiers adjust to life in the real world before returning to their families. As one of the characters Marine (Soko) puts it, the government and military want to remove all bad images from the soldiers and return them only with clean images back to their families.

Given the trauma soldiers face in war, a three day decompression session isn’t enough. However, it is better than 0 days which is the case with many countries. Of course, as the film highlights, this strategy isn’t perfect. The first aspect is the culture shock of going from Afghanistan to a Cypriot beach resort, or as Max (Karim Leklou) puts it “Going from burkhas to thongs”.

The other aspect is that each person deals with issues in their own way. This is emphasized repeatedly in the film as some benefit from talking about their feelings while others prefer solitude. Then there is the aspect of what one should discuss in front of their superiors and colleagues. In the film, the sessions involve using virtual reality to put the soldiers back in the mental space of their missions. There is a psychiatrist available to observe and offer a one-on-one session if needed. The soldiers are told to be honest in what they say. However, the film shows honesty doesn’t always go down well. This is because in some cases there are unwritten military rules which are violated if one is honest about the failure of a mission or who was responsible for the loss of troops’ lives. Violation of these unwritten rules don’t result in any healing but instead may add to more problems for a solider.

Delphine and Muriel Coulin's smart script and direction, which won Best Screenplay at Cannes’ Un Certain Regard in 2016, depict events in a layered manner sprinkled with humour and compassion. There is a lot of material this film covers but full credit to the sisters that they allow each issue its own space on screen. The film covers multiple characters but in a few minutes, we are able to get an accurate understanding of their differing personalities. The film is mostly filtered from the perspective of three women soldiers, Marine (Soko), Aurore (Ariane Labed) and Fanny (Ginger Romàn). Marine and Aurore are shown to be childhood friends and they get most of the screen time but Fanny’s presence is crucial and the film shows that at the end of the day, the three women soldiers have to fend for themselves against the male egos. The inclusion of a few crucial scenes highlights another complicated layer of the military with regards to the differing treatment between men and women and also how abuse is allowed to go unchecked.

The film premiered at Cannes in 2016 but frustratingly the film was not included in the Main Competition. Admittedly 2016 was a strong year for Cannes but The Stopover is one of the best, if not the best, movies about war to be ever made. It deserved to be in the Main Competition on merit and if it had been included, then perhaps it would have gotten more coverage and would have been discussed and seen by more people.