15/49
In the winter of 1862, during the American Civil War, the U.S. Army sends a company of volunteers to patrol uncharted western territory. Minervini built a set in Montana and then allowed the cast to live there for two months. The dialogue and thoughts expressed are those that the actors came up with while living in the middle of the wilderness, imagining themselves as soldiers in the Civil War. Damned: In the winter of 1862, a volunteer unit of Union soldiers is sent to defend the mountain territory, we are not told where it is, nor do we learn the names of the soldiers. Once the regular troops leave, they are under the command of a John Brown-style patriarch with a flowing beard, and his teenage sons have also enlisted. The soldiers are a mixed bag, some middle-aged, even elderly, most in their thirties. All have no military experience, knowledge is shared and skills are transferred. We witness mobile guards firing at distant horsemen. The buffalo is shot and slaughtered. The bleak landscape, the hills, the mountain meadows, the snowstorms, the depletion of food rations – all this increases the 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 don’t know why you’re there. A Ken Loach-style film, with no set dialogue from day to day and a lot of ordinary people acting like amateurs as soldiers. This improvisation leads to philosophical, religious and political discussions around campfires. Some of them are too long. But this is a minor distraction from this harsh picture of men at war. Written and directed by Roberto Minervini, 8/10.
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