It's a refrain I heard often during the film festival. "Why are there so many films with 'war' in the title?" "Is this an anti-war festival?" "I thought this wasn't supposed to be a political event"…and so forth. Now, one week post-fest, here we are showing a film at the State entitled - dare I say it? - "War Made Easy." Lest our audiences start suffering from "war" overload, I think it's only fair we take a look at why we are showing these particular movies, and what they have to say about our current cultural state.

Poster for "War Made Easy"

Michael Moore made an astute point in a letter to Friends and Volunteers this week that the reason we have so many films with "war" in the title is, quite simply, because that's what's being made these days. He cited how movies like "Grapes of Wrath" were made during the Depression, while pro-war flicks like "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo" and "Sands of Iwo Jima" came out in World War II. "We now live in a time when 70 percent of the people don't support a war," Michael said, "so it's natural that some of the best filmmakers have turned their attention to this subject. Some of their films are among the best films being made right now."

I agree with Michael, and this is the answer I myself gave when asked about the collection of "war" films at this year's festival. Our country has been entrenched in an expensive, high-casualty war overseas for the past five years. Doesn't it make sense that our popular culture - our movies, our music, our books, our art - would reflect that fact? Artists are unavoidably influenced by the world they live in. Whether it's Dylan firing off protest songs during Vietnam or De Palma tackling brutal issues of rape and murder during the American occupation of Iraq, the creative community acts as a mouthpiece for the rest of the population, challenging the establishment and giving voice to the conflicted turmoil of emotion that accompanies nearly all periods of war.

What has been disappointing to me is not the proliferation of war films, but the lackluster response these films have received at the box office. Granted, going to see "Body of War" or "Taxi to the Dark Side" probably isn't going to be the same first-date experience as seeing, say, "Mama Mia!" (though some would argue, it may be less depressing). And sure, it's true that we as Americans are bombarded with coverage of the war from the media every day.

But what's important to distinguish, as "War Made Easy" does, is that the coverage we're getting might - just might - not be the complete, three-dimensional story. Images, like those of body bags being taken off military planes, are left out. Dissenting voices, like Michael's or Phil Donahue's, are removed from the airwaves or else dismissed as unpatriotic. Important basic facts (location of WMDs, anyone?) are ignored or overlooked in favor of sensationalistic graphics and pounding intro music.

One of the many "unpleasant" images you won't see on CNN

What the war films are able to do, then, is to fill in the blanks in our national consciousness of what exactly is taking place in Iraq, and explore how we might even begin to imagine a way out of there. To be clear - this isn't a matter of supporting the war or opposing the war. All citizens should know the exact reasons their country has gone to war, every time their country goes to war, regardless of their political beliefs. Seeing these films, then, is simply about thinking about the war, discussing and debating it, trying to understand it. These filmmakers are doing the heavy lifting for us, so we owe it to them - and to ourselves, as a nation - to pay attention to what they're showing us.

The next time you see a "war" film playing at the theater, why not take a chance and check it out? The lineup we had at the festival is a great place to start, and you can also catch a number of stellar films right now on DVD ("No End in Sight," "Iraq in Fragments," "The Road to Guantanamo," "In the Valley of Elah"). You might love what you see, or you might hate it; you might be moved to tears, or you might be more convinced than ever that invading Iraq was the right thing to do. But in any event, you will hopefully at least be moved and provoked to think. After you've seen one of these films, I invite you to pop back on the blog and share your thoughts on what you've seen. We'd love to hear which films you admired, which ones you can't stand and which ones we should be showing that we haven't yet. After all: War films, like any other films, are ultimately a personal and creative endeavor, and should receive the same level of credibility and scrutiny as their peers. It's just our job as audiences to make sure we show up.