This extraordinary film takes you as close to war as it is possible to get. Plus, the new series of The A Word and the metropolitan breeders of Motherland

‘If one of us is in trouble we go to their rescue,” says Jamal, at the beginning of The Fight for Mosul (Channel 4). They are words that will have sad personal resonance for him later on.

Jamal is a sergeant with a special forces unit in the Iraqi army. Along with squad leader Anmar, Hussein, Amjad, Abbas and a few others. They were some of the first to go into Mosul last year to try to retake the city from Isis.

With them was French film-maker Olivier Sarbil. This is embedded journalism at its most extreme, the more so when you find out he had no fixer or translator, and doesn’t speak Arabic. He just went along, pointed his camera at them, lived, ate and slept with them and tried not to die with them, as they slowly clawed back the city.

It is confused at times, but there is an appropriateness to that: war is a mess. Anwar and his men often don’t know what is going on, who is Isis and who is not. There is little in the way of explanation – it’s observational rather than journalistic. But there is a purity and an honesty in that.

And it takes you as close to war as it is possible to get. Into a maelstrom of broken glass as a window is shattered by Isis bullets. Running along sniper alley – one of many. Then a car bomb goes off, perhaps the child suicide bomber interviewed on Isis radio the night before.

Sarbil captures all aspects of the fight. The horror and hideousness, a dead Isis fighter in a pool of blood, terrified civilians traumatised after months of living in fear. Some bad behaviour, mistreatment of prisoners, an attempt to send a civilian into a building to check for Isis fighters. Then the odd moment of normality, a cock crowing, a cat, a soppy phone call to a loved one.

It also shows the pleasure some men get in battle. “I feel very happy I killed them,” says Hussein, the sniper. “It’s not like a war but a wedding party.”

Most of all, it shows the extraordinary band-of-brothers bond they form, that means that if one is in trouble, another will go to his rescue. Jamal gets into trouble, wounded in a firefight. Amjad goes to help, and gets killed. A brother down, and you can see what it means to the others.

It is an extraordinary film – insanely brave, but also intimate and human. The sound of automatic gunfire rings on long after the final credits.

The A Word (BBC1) returns – autism drama in a lovely Lakeland setting. On the A word itself, it is excellent, taking on loads of important issues. In the first series, this meant the parents’ denial, a reluctance to look for or accept a diagnosis, then some big truths to face up to, while the other sibling is largely ignored.

Now it is about the reaction of other parents (that will hit a nerve with anyone with experience; all of it will actually). And about Joe himself finding out – or not wanting to find out – about his differences. All of which is dealt with with compassion and understanding, alongside an appreciation of Joe and his world. There is an extraordinary performance by young Max Vento even if it is a pity they couldn’t find anyone with autism to play the part.

Less impressive is the background. Not the Lakes, which are lovely, but the pettiness of village life, family squabbles, on-off marriages, new boyfriends, comedy migrant workers, caricatures – it is soapy and slight, and I wondered if Joe – and the subject – deserved more. Frankly, at times it made me feel like putting a pair of blue headphones on and playing the Buzzcocks really loud myself.

Hey, it addresses a really important subject sensitively but not worthily. It’s very watchable in fact, so that’s got to be good. And at times – such as when Alison and Paul watch their son, playing in the playground, alone – it’s lump-in-the-throat moving as well.

Motherland (BBC2) returns, too, after a pilot, for a series. Good news for middle-class metropolitan breeders for whom it is a funhouse mirror they can point into and chuckle. When I say “they”, I mean we. And actually everything is terrifyingly recognisable, testament to the writers’ (loads of well-known people) powers of observation, but also why I find it a teeny bit ghastly. Golly, doesn’t Anna Maxwell Martin’s overwrought Julia annoy well? Thank heavens for Lucy Punch’s fabulously Stepfordy queen bee Amanda, and for Diane Morgan’s super-droll Liz. And for Ben Crompton, Animal Man, rubbish children’s entertainer. Rubbish AND racist. “If your act was amazing I’d put up with a tiny bit of racism,” says Liz. Ha!