An ethical struggle with ‘kill’ technology
The working title for Eye in the Sky, a new film from director Gavin Hood, was the decidedly more menacing The Kill Chain.
“That’s an actual phrase, and you hear it used in the movie,” Hood says, discussing the film ahead of its world première at last September’s Toronto International Film Festival. “But there’s something very aggressive in that. And I think what we’re trying to find in this film is a balance between the aggressive nature of the idea of a kill chain, and common humanity and compassion.”
Thus the switch from what sounds like a Steven Seagal project to one that recalls a hit by The Alan Parsons Project.
The kill chain in question refers to the decision by a group of British and American leaders — political, military and bureaucratic — about whether to unleash a drone-delivered Hellfire missile into a terrorist gathering in Kenya. The intel, including some on-the-ground surveillance by a local operative, is good, but the risk of civilian casualties is also high.
“The Kill Chain makes it sound like a guy’s movie,” says Hood, “and I think in many ways it’s a women’s movie.” Indeed, the lead character, Col. Katherine Powell, is played by the steely Helen Mirren. “I don’t want women to be put off or feel that this isn’t a conversation that we all need to engage in.”
Hood credits screenwriter Guy Hibbert with having “created a scenario that allows vigorous debate from both points of view. You can create a scenario where the argument for releasing the bomb is im- perative,” he says, referring to the “ticking time bomb” that is often invoked as grounds to use lethal force and/or torture. “He creates that ticking time bomb — yet is it? You’re changing your own point of view, or at least struggling.”
Eye in the Sky also features a beetle-sized drone that infiltrates the terrorists’ safe house; what it sees, causes Col. Powell to change her recommendation from capture to kill.
“They are called micro-aerial vehicles, or MAVS,” Hood explains. “The beetle in the film is real; it’s where it’s going.”
Experts he spoke to talked about battery limitations and 3-D mapping technology that would allow an operator to point to a spot and have the MAV land itself there. Although, given that this is bleedingedge technology, “they kind of stop talking to you at a certain point.”
“I hope that what the film does is ... in a small way contribute to an important conversation that’s already going on,” he says. “If we’ve done that then I think we’ve done our job. Not to be smug or selfrighteous or excessively certain of our own position. This is a difficult time we’re living in.”