34/30
In the winter of 1862, during the Civil War, the U.S. Army sends a company of volunteers to patrol the uncharted western territories. Minervini built the set in Montana, then let the cast live there for two months. The dialogue and thoughts expressed are those that the actors invented while living in the wilderness imagining themselves as soldiers in the Civil War. Damned: In the winter of 1862, a unit of Union volunteers is sent to defend the mountainous terrain, we are not told where it is, nor do we learn the names of the soldiers. After the regular troops depart, they are under the command of a John Brown-style patriarch with a flowing beard, and his teenage sons also enlist. The troops are a diverse group, some middle-aged, even elderly, most in their thirties. All without military experience, they share knowledge and skills are transferred. We witness mobile sentries, shots fired at distant knights. A buffalo is shot and slaughtered, the desolate landscape, the hills, the mountain meadows, the falling snow, the cold rations that are insufficient, all contribute to a growing sense of existential despair. A battle is taking place, we don’t see the enemy, we see the casualties of the unit. War is hell, especially when you no longer know why you are there. Very much like a Ken Loach-style film, with no fixed dialogue from one day to the next and with many ordinary people acting, amateurs as the soldiers. This improvisation leads to philosophical, religious and political discussions around the campfires. Some of it goes on too long. But it is a small distraction from this harsh picture of men at war. Written and directed by Roberto Minervini, 8/10.
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