Monday, February 15, 2010

Another 'tough guy' kufiya: Matt Damon in "Green Zone"

I haven't even had a chance to see From Paris with Love or The Book of Eli yet, and now there's already another film with a "tough guy" character garbed in kufiya coming up. Green Zone, starring Matt Damon, is based on Rajiv Chandrasekaran's acclaimed book, Imperial Life in the Emerald City. The book is non-fiction, the film, a fictionalized version. Damon plays the part of Ray Miller, a warrant officer who is helping the CIA in its hunt for WMD's, and comes upon some sort of CIA conspiracy. It opens March 12.

Miller seems to be the only American in the film wearing a kufiya. He wears it US military style, as a scarf, kept inside the jacket, just the top bit protruding. It's never worn hipster, "triangle" style, nor is it ever wrapped around the head. That Miller (Damon) is shown with it in almost every scene would seem to indicate that it's an important insignia, an insignia, I'm pretty sure, of Miller's toughness. The fact that he's the only one shown wearing one distinguishes Miller/Damon as number one tough guy.

Given that the film is directed by Paul Greengrass, who also directed the Bourne trilogy, and given that it's based on the Chandrasekaran book, the film promises to be (a) action-packed and (b) politically interesting. The trailer makes one hopeful.



And the film will at the minimum have that kufiya thing going for it.


Did The Hurt Locker set off a trend? Or do such films just accurately depict US military styles in Iraq?

3 comments:

Ali said...

this looks like a solid kufiya and a different color than I've seen. Do you know where you could get one just like it?

falastinia said...

thanks for such constructive and great work ! i would like to ask you few things regarding the Kufiya , who wrote what on this matter, what kind of literature available. how can i contact you?

Ted Swedenburg said...

tsweden@uark.edu