35/19
Minervini had a set built in Montana and then allowed the cast to live there for two months
Chronology
In the winter of 1862, during the American Civil War, the US Army sends a company of volunteers to patrol uncharted western territories. The dialogues and thoughts expressed are those that occurred to the actors while living in the middle of nowhere, imagining they were soldiers in the Civil War. The Damned: In the winter of 1862, a volunteer unit of Union soldiers was sent to defend mountainous territory – we are not told where it was, we do not even learn the names of the soldiers.
We witness mobile guards shooting at distant cyclists
Once the regular troops have departed, they are under the command of a John Brown-esque patriarch with a flowing beard, and his teenage sons have also enlisted. The soldiers are a motley mix – some middle-aged, even old, most in their thirties. None of them have any military experience – knowledge is shared and skills are transferred.
The buffalo is shot and slaughtered
The desolate landscape, the hills, the mountain meadows, the snowstorms, the lack of food rations – all of this adds to the sense of existential despair. A battle is going on, we don’t see the enemy, we see the unit’s casualties. War is hell, especially when you don’t know why you’re there.
Some of them are too long
A Ken Loach-style film, with no fixed day-to-day dialogue and lots of ordinary people acting like amateurs as soldiers. This improvisation gives way to philosophical, religious and political discussions around campfires. But that’s a minor distraction from this raw depiction of men at war.