The Damned 2024 HDTV.10Bit Download via Magnet
16/43
In the winter of 1862, during the Civil War, the U.S. Army sends out a group of volunteers to patrol the uncharted western territories. Minervini sets up a set in Montana, then has the actors live there for two months. The dialogue and ideas expressed are what the actors came up with while living in the wilderness and imagining themselves as soldiers in the Civil War. We are not told where it is, nor are we given the names of the soldiers. After the regular troops depart, under the command of a John Brown-style patriarch with a flowing beard, his teenage sons enlist. The bands are a mixed bunch, some middle-aged, even old, most in their thirties. All without military experience, they share knowledge and skills are passed down. We witness mobile rangers, strikes on distant horsemen. A buffalo is shot and killed. The bleak landscape, the hills, the mountain meadows, the drifting snow, the cold rations, all contribute to a developing sense of existential despair. A battle breaks out, we see no enemy, we see the losses of a unit. War is hell, especially when you don’t know why you’re there. A Ken Loach-like film with no dialogue from day to day and with lots of ordinary people playing actors, amateurs as soldiers. This improvisation leads to philosophical, religious and political discussions around campfires. Some of them are not welcome. But it’s a minor distraction from this raw picture of men at war. Written and directed by Roberto Minervini, 8/10.