Bernardo Moreno, Rodrigo Díaz Guerrero & Josemaría Moreno
War is relentless. The global struggle for power—and the interests world powers pursue or impose—never ceases. Ukraine, the Middle East, and other conflicts make this painfully clear. As José Manuel Nieves writes in A Cruel Slaughter: The First War in History:
“War is the gravest form of sociopolitical conflict between human groups. It exists in tribal and modern societies alike, but it’s more devastating in the latter due to their scale, complexity, and technology. It may be the oldest form of international relations.”
If violence is a civilizational constant, what’s most devastating isn’t strategy or territory—but the lives lost, the displaced families, the shattered identities. Starvation, disease, and execution. Survivors left broken. That is war’s enduring legacy.
Turtles Can Fly (2004) – Bahman Ghobadi
This award-winning Kurdish film by Iranian director Bahman Ghobadi is one of cinema’s most harrowing portrayals of childhood amid violence. Set in a refugee camp on the Iraq–Turkey border, it follows Kurdish children—amputees, survivors of abuse, the blind—who survive by dismantling landmines to sell for scrap, hoping to buy a satellite dish for news of the looming war. Their grim reality is interrupted by the visions of one child, who foresees the U.S.-led invasion that would topple Saddam Hussein.
The cast—all local children, many of whom lived through these horrors—bring a raw realism that makes the film feel more like a brutal documentary. It immerses the viewer in the aftermath of Western intervention, dictatorship, and fundamentalism—where death and despair rob children of innocence.
War and Peace (1869) – Leo Tolstoy
This monumental novel is a jewel of world literature, unmatched in scope, technique, and thematic depth, weaving history, philosophy, and emotion into its epic narrative. Two themes stand out.
First: how does one uphold integrity in a society consumed by war? Tolstoy’s characters wrestle with nihilism, spiritual searching, or—while others waltz through the flames of a burning Moscow.
Second: are historical events shaped by “great men” like Napoleon, or do they arise from the combined momentum of countless anonymous choices? The novel challenges us to ask: to what extent are we, knowingly or not, shaping the wars of our own era?
War Stories (2007) – U.N.K.L.E.
This third album from James Lavelle’s U.N.K.L.E. project shifts away from hip-hop into electrifying rock-electronica—an immersive soundtrack to inner conflict. Sixteen tracks pulse with confrontational lyrics about interpersonal wars: colliding planets of fear, despair, and existential dread, all searching—perhaps—for love, under grinding basslines and futuristic synths.
The cover art by 3D (of Massive Attack) features skeletal figures with sinister grins and hearts exposed. As always, U.N.K.L.E. brings a star lineup: Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age), Ian Astbury (The Cult), Gavin Clark, and more.
Lead single “Burn My Shadow” (with its stunning video) builds to a thunderous crescendo, then ends with the haunting line: “We watched it burn together. I saw it burn. All is forgiven.”
