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THERE WILL BE NO MORE NIGHT
While they are flying, everything the pilots watch is being filmed.
Everything that is recorded is then archived.
In the theater of external operations,
deleting the recordings is a violation, or even a crime.
There are two pilots in each helicopter.
Below is the pilot flying the machine,
above is the commander, “the gunner”.
The commander wears a helmet that manages the camera of the helicopter.
If he turns his head to see what is happening to his left,
or if he turns to his right, if he looks down,
the camera follows.
His head movements also guide the machine gun.
Together, they make one body.
I've encountered Pierre V. several times,
he's a pilot in the French army.
When he's at the controls of his helicopter,
he wears field glasses that intensify light.
If he lifts his head to look at the stars,
their number is multiplied by one hundred.
Pierre V. says that it's a unique experience:
to see a hundred times more stars than usual.
In the viewfinder of his thermographic camera too,
everything that produces heat glows,
living beings as well as car lights.
Pierre V. says that he is often disorientated by those light reflections.
During their training, the pilots undergo this exercise:
they follow a car, never taking their eyes off of it.
They concentrate hard on it.
Then after a moment,
someone asks them if they remember the route that the car has taken.
And they realize that they don't know.
They don't remember.
They have completely forgotten the route, the terrain, the curves.
For pilots, this loss of visual contact
is the most disturbing thing of all.
Losing visual contact,
that is how soldiers refer to the moment
when the enemy gets out their sight.
Either they lose sight of the target,
or they lose sight of the trajectory the target has taken.
In either case, it causes uneasiness.
A man disappears for an instant,
and we are no longer sure of anything.
Someone might have taken his place.
Or he had the time to hide his weapon.
The helicopters are hundreds of meters,
sometimes kilometers, from their targets.
And the pilots can't hear anything happening on the ground.
They are cut off.
They feel neither the wind, nor the heat, nor the cold,
they don't know if their enemies are talking, if they shout.
The only noise that they can sometimes hear
is the sound of strafing from their own cannon.
Despite the power of the cameras,
Pierre V. complains of not seeing well.
Or rather: too much and not enough all at the same time.
The cameras suddenly zoom in on what they are filming.
They zoom so much that he can distinguish the clothing a man is wearing,
the design and the color of the fabric.
But this proximity alarms him.
And when he zooms in, it only lasts an instant.
His view is intrusive,
like opening a door that should not have been.
Pierre V. also says that the zooms are nauseating,
they can't be stood for very long.
Pilots learn to never believe what they see.
They call it the “culture of doubt”.
The more they see,
the less they believe what they see.
At night they have difficulty differentiating a river from a road.
The only thing that helps them, when there is no wind,
is the reflection of the stars on the water.
It is also difficult to distinguish between men,
to tell the difference between a soldier and a civilian.
But it's not just a question of good or bad sight.
Soldiers only have the right to fire
if they are sure of their enemies' hostile intentions.
At least that is what their rules of engagement say.
When soldiers talk about war, these questions always come back:
doubt, clearance to shoot.
The imbalance of the forces is irrevocable
and the pilots are now out of reach.
The only thing they risk says Pierre V.,
is to find themselves before a court of law.
They are haunted by the fear of committing a blunder.
But realistically they no longer know what a blunder is.
The definitions are blurry.
And no pilot is taken to law court,
or it's very rare.
According to Pierre V.,
the gunner must learn to refrain himself
because everything is too easy.
And when he is at the controls of his machine,
he must regularly pinch himself to be sure he isn't dreaming.
When they hear the sound of a helicopter,
Iraqi or Afghan fighters quickly hide their weapons behind a wall
or even throw them in the middle of nowhere.
And that complicates the pilots' task even more.
They have problems, when bodies scintillate,
distinguishing between a farmer carrying a rake on his shoulder
and a soldier with a Kalashnikov.
In Afghanistan,
villagers have been killed in the middle of the night by air strikes
while watering the fields.
Because of this possible confusion,
farmers also hide their tools when they hear a helicopter approaching,
for fear that they be mistaken for rifles.
Pierre V. has watched this scene several times.
He felt that these men looked suspicious,
he thought that they were preparing something bad.
It's obvious to him.
The hesitations, the coming and going,
the discussions.
It's the middle of the night,
Pierre V. says that they have no business being in the field.
And they don't seem peaceful.
There's one who starts to run.
And a man who runs, that’s what is most noticeable.
When I ask if they hear the helicopter,
Pierre V. says yes, undoubtedly.
When I ask why they don't run away
since they hear the helicopter,
Pierre V. says it would make them even more suspicious.
According to him, they are pretending to be calm.
When I point out that one of the men was jumping cheerfully,
Pierre V. doesn't answer.
But he adds there is always a risk of being wrong.
When I ask if it's normal that the pilot continues
to go after the man who rolled under the truck,
he replies that it's not very decent
but once you start shooting
it's difficult to stop.
The distinct spots visible on the ground,
Pierre V. thinks they are a mixture.
They are bomb fragments and also some blood.
Maybe it's a crime, says Pierre V.
but he immediately adds:
the pilot could always say that they never signed the Geneva Convention for the protection of the wounded,
so it doesn't apply.
As he was watching this scene,
Pierre V. mentioned the insolent tranquillity of the man in white.
When the pilots shoot at a man,
then they must give the film to their hierarchy.
The military will watch the scene later, calmly.
They will ask if the shooting was justified.
They will verify, by examining the images,
that the man who was killed actually had hostile intentions.
They will discuss, they will interpret.
When things are not sufficiently distinct,
they will resort to what is not seen, the context.
They will invoke, if necessary,
the principle of delayed legitimate defence.
Then the pilot will consult a psychologist,
he will consult another one six months later.
You don't know when the anxiety will appear,
you don't know when the guilt will appear.
It may never appear.
Or it can come, according to Pierre V.,
when the soldier is sitting comfortably in his living room,
when he is with his family, while watching TV.
The anxiety is so hidden that it will surprise him when least expected.
It is as hidden as these images,
these scenes buried in the army archives,
these films shot each day far from home.
It's an endless film.
Each instant is recorded,
even when there is nothing to see.
Pierre V. says these images are not meant to be watched.
According to him, these documents are strictly operational,
and that perspective can only elude me.
I believe that one day they will come out again,
they will haunt us, just as childhood images.
This scene was filmed by the French.
A Puma is picking up ground troops
while another helicopter, a Tiger, covers the operation.
In the beginning, the pilots scrutinize the landscape,
everything is normal.
But a little later,
enemy silhouettes appear over the ridge.
According to Pierre V.,
before they appeared, these men were hiding underneath blankets.
It’s a usual method used by the Afghans.
They soak the blankets in water, and at night,
in the mountains, they cool down very quickly.
The bodies beneath become invisible.
When I point out the fact that French helicopters are named after wild animals
the Puma, the Gazelle, the Tiger,
it makes Pierre V. smile.
He adds that sometimes they have the prey's name,
sometimes the predator's.
Americans name their helicopters after Indian tribes they've massacred:
Apache, Kiowa, Cheyenne.
Pierre V. says that people don’t run away,
except when there is shooting or an explosion, and even then,
sometimes it doesn’t impress them anymore.
After many years of war and the noise of helicopters above them,
they wouldn’t be able to live if they thought about it.
They hear a noise, sometimes the noise is constant,
but they don’t know if they are the ones being targeted.
They feel an eye watching them,
an eye with an eyelid that doesn’t close anymore.
But we can’t constantly be afraid,
it’s impossible to run away all the time.
Again.
To see, if possible, even further.
It doesn't matter that there is absolutely nothing to see.
Whether there is only the ground,
or the sky.
To keep scrutinizing.
Until there are no more landmarks.
Nothing which allows you to judge your own actions.
No more constraints.
Pierre V. thinks this video has changed people's point of view on those wars,
because it has caused a scandal.
One of the men hit by the soldiers that day was a journalist,
a journalist who came to take pictures.
In his bag, there was no rifle,
but a camera tripod.
From the beginning to the end,
the pilots were wrong about what they were watching.
If there was one thing to learn from the scene, says Pierre V.,
it is that the more pilots can see, the more they can make mistakes.
This is how we make war.
We can’t know if these images represent the rest,
or if the rest is worse.
One day, what the pilots so often thought they saw, becomes reality.
Everybody ends up wearing a Kalashnikov:
the citizens, the peasants, the shepherds, the insurgents,
the Taliban, the Islamists.
In the villages, in the cities, in the mountains.
On their screens, it's the only thing the pilots see.
They repeat endlessly the same sentences.
And when men appear,
their enthusiasm to see that they are armed stays intact.
As if each time it was a surprise.
There is always someone behind the camera.
Even when we think there is nobody.
Even when it is a machine which films, or a technician.
There is always someone watching.
Someone who records and who watches.
This time, the pilots were surprised,
they had nothing to do with it.
They yelled as they would have yelled in front of an achievement
or a catastrophe.
Yet it’s not the first time that they witness this kind of scene,
that they see a handmade bomb suddenly explode.
Now they can’t stop turning around this sort of eye
immersed in the sand.
When I ask why they dwell on the location of the explosion,
Pierre V. answers that the pilots always check,
even if there is nothing to see.
They turn in circles,
it’s a kind of ritual.
Then he adds that this scene is particular,
because of the astonishment.
When I ask him if he has already seen death,
Pierre V. answers no.
One day I ended up on this scene of daily life,
found among the war scenes.
A soldier is filming children playing in an Afghan village.
At first it is worrying, but the cross in the viewfinder
becomes less precise,
as if relaxed.
At moments it becomes threatening again, but regularly, I can't see it anymore.
This soldier seems to have forgotten that his camera is a weapon
And he uses it to compose a shot.
There will be no more night,
nor need for a lamp or sunlight.
There will be no more distance.
Nothing far and nothing close.
There will be neither shelter nor nooks.
Nowhere to hide.
No more resort or escape.
We will distinguish silhouettes.
But we won't see people's faces.
There will be no more reciprocity.
No more head to head.
The pilots have been flying for maybe an hour or two,
have surveyed and overflown the area.
That is what Pierre V. says.
The men are armed.
They might be Talibans.
Or they might be shepherds.
This one hopes to escape.
He drags himself, as if in this dry landscape,
walking on four feet could make him invisible.
He is killed.
This one crawls. They terminate him.
Pierre V. says pilots are proud when there is no error,
no mistake,
when the sophisticated precision of the shots is at its zenith.
He is surprised they got clearance to fire
as there were civilians nearby.
When I ask him why soldiers do not capture the fighters,
he says that helicopters could indeed land in these mountains,
but it is not the way things happen.
While he is watching this scene,
I see him hesitate for the first time.
But he quickly renounces to express his doubts,
deciding I am not able to watch these images the way he does.
How many people wait in the tents?
How many wait to come out and retrieve the bodies?
Someone is approaching slowly and carefully,
it looks like an old woman, her back hunched.
The pilot watches her,
then turns to something else.
The war could be told entirely through the lens of the viewfinder.
Nothing would be missing.
There could even be, in the end, the soldiers' departure
when the military staff decide to call back their troops.
But it would be a fake end.
Because when the troops leave, the ones who live there
are armed to the teeth.
Where there was war,
peace is no longer possible.
That is what saddens Pierre V.
He says it’s disappointing for the soldiers,
being welcomed nowhere as heroes.
From time to time, in the country where they live,
a pilot may be watching them.
They start living like the others again.
They see their family,
they see their friends.
They have the worn look of soldiers engaged in an endless war.
Often, Pierre V. has told me about the soldiers’ impatience,
the role it plays in their lives,
built on waiting.
He says he would not want a war at home,
he would not want a war in his own street.
But a foreign operation, yes.
War in another country.
We are at Vilano Beach, United States,
it's in fact a dark night.
It is neither morning, nor afternoon,
nor even the end of the day.
The most recent cameras can do that,
they can remove the night.
Only the stars create a disturbance,
because they glow in the daytime sky.
It’s still night.
And this man plays at hiding behind a bush.
Soon enough some will see as in daylight,
the others will stay immersed in darkness.
Minuscule and stubborn,
they will continue to advance arduously,
holding small lamps or flashlights.
The powerful will see them coming with great clarity.
It will be the world of the real night,
and of the fake day.