Oscilloscope Laboratories Targets July 2 For The Release Of DVD And Blu-ray Editions Of Director Miles Lagoze's Combat Obscura

Afghanistan, the longest running war in American history.    Over 17 years and counting … and no end in sight.   The lessons learned from Vietnam and Korea, were either never really learned, or simply forgotten.   

Miles Lagoze, right out of high school, joined the U.S. Marines as a combat cameraman.   It was a “job” that he could actually sign up for … in interviews, he says that he wanted to see the war; experience it.  He did.   

Armed with a rifle, ammo, armor and a camera he went to war in Afghanistan, with the First Battalion, Sixth Marine Regiment, his mission was to film action for use by the Marine Corps and, by extension, the Pentagon for PR use.   He kept on filming and when his turn of duty was over he took home everything that wasn’t used by the Marine Corps.

Lagoze then went to school, film school, and began working on assembling the raw footage into a coherent narrative about combat — the unfiltered combat that doesn’t make the nightly news — and what emerged is one of the most-gripping combat documentaries ever filmed, Combat Obscura.

Oscilloscope Laboratories announced this past week that producer/filmmaker Miles Lagoze’s Combat Obscura will be available as both DVD and Blu-ray product offerings on July 2.

The film worked the festival circuit and Oscilloscope then picked it for theatrical distribution — art house play dates likely right up until the home entertainment release date.    For example, this past weekend it was screened at the Cinematheque in Daytona Beach, Florida and at the Music Hall in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

This is a fairly typical release for independent films.   And we are talking independent … Lagoze shot the film footage with rifle at the ready, learned how to edit it, produce and then bring a completed film to market.

What separates Combat Obscura from documentaries made by imbedded journalists is that Lagoze — his nickname among the infantry Marines was “YouTube” — was that he was a member of the combat team.   He filmed what the men wanted, what they were comfortable with … nothing was sanitized.  

The result is a one-of-a-kind film.    Combat Obscura doesn’t explain the war, that’s probably not even possible after 17 years, but serves up a fragmented series of vignettes … pieces of time; moments of combat that put the viewer in the middle of the action.   It comes through loud and clear that the members of each platoon becomes one — a fraternity — for those moments and unless you are a member of that brotherhood, you would never be given access.

Bonus features include a view session with filmmaker Miles Lagoze and a collection of his actual Department of Defense videos.