‘The Invisible War’ Boldly Tackles Military Rape (review)

Headlines in recent years pointing to the gruesome regularity with which rape afflicts members of the U.S. military make the tragic personal stories of the victims critical to air. According to U.S. government studies, there were about 22,800 violent sex crimes in the military in 2011, with 30% of servicewomen sexually assaulted during their enlistment.  More telling, the studies reveal that women in combat zones are more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by the enemy while 40% of female homeless vets who have been raped, they have a higher PTSD rate than men in combat. The Invisible War, which premiered at the Los Angeles Film Festival, details the victims’ ordeals in stark, true-to-life fashion.

Directed by Kirby Dick and produced by Amy Ziering, the documentary The Invisible War consists of powerful interviews of victims of both sexes whose lives were destroyed, and of a seemingly complacent military – or one that is all to eager to believe its’ preventative and counseling measures are effective.

Stories like those of the Coast Guard’s Kori Cioca, whose jaw was pulverized in an attack that she carries a knife with her at all times, and that of Navy’s Trina McDonald, drugged and raped repeatedly by the military police in Alaska’s remote Aleutian Islands, exposes the inhumanity soldiers’ face in the wake of the military’s incomplete attention to this epidemic.

Veteran filmmaker Dick (Outrage, Twist of Faith)  said before Sundance, where The Invisible War won the audience award, that the stories he heard were “the most intense series of interviews I have ever been involved with.”  With the subjects as well as the men in their lives often in tears, he adds, “both Amy and I cried at just about every interview.”

It is not just the detailing of the horrors of assault that makes “The Invisible War” so upsetting, it is its exploration of the before and after — an examination of what led these people to the military in the first place and what happened to them once they filed rape charges — that gives the film much of its power.

The story juxtaposes the pride with which the unwitting victims have enlisted to serve their country with the harsh reality of unpunished, blame-the-victim rape, with clips from the Army-created 1950s TV documentary series “The Big Picture,” showing the pride of the women who served back in the day, followed by one of those ubiquitous “Be All You Can Be” advertising spots. “When that bond of trust is broken,” says  psychiatrist and Army Brig. Gen. Loree Sutton, “the wound penetrates to the innermost part of the soul.”  The betrayal stings deeper still as stories emerge that the military refuses to treat the victims’ injuries.  Kori Cioca unsuccessfully battled the Veterans Administration office to pay for medical treatment for her debilitating injuries.

Directed By: Kirby Dick