Tuesday, February 18, 2025

Movie Review (NYFF 2024): ‘The Damned’ Basks in the Silence of the Battlefield


Director: Roberto Minervini
Writer: Roberto Minervini
Stars: Jeremiah Knupp, René W. Solomon, Timothy Carlson

Synopsis: In the winter of 1862, during the Civil War, the U.S. Army sends a volunteer company to patrol the uncharted Western territories.


Throughout the decades, war pictures have primarily been constructed as cinematic spectacles rather than portraits of the tragedy and violence of those sacrificing themselves on the battlefield and frontlines. On some occasions, you can appreciate the technical side of war films, specifically the big-budget ones like Sam Mendes’ 1917, Edward Berger’s adaptation of All Quiet on the Western Front, and Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk, in which they recreate warzones to the best of their abilities. However, there is a feeling of responsibility from the directors partaking in such behavior and approach due to their focus on the theatrics rather than the psychological and emotional bouts these soldiers are facing, coming face to face with death itself due to the calamity occurring in every corner. 

In a 2012 Hollywood Reporter roundtable, Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke mentioned a similar thought, using Steven Spielberg’s acclaimed film Schindler’s List as an example. When asked if he would ever make a film about Hitler, to which he immediately replies with a no, Haneke says that it is impossible for him to do that because creating entertainment out of that monstrous historical figure is a reckless and ill-considered maneuver. Haneke later stated the difference between how Alain Resnais handled the time and setting in his gripping masterwork Night and Fog–where the French filmmaker asks, “What is your position?” and “What does this mean to you?”–and Spielberg’s approach. “The mere idea of trying to draw and create suspense out of the question of whether gas or water is going to come out of the shower head is unspeakable to me”, said Haneke. 

His direct and assertive tone left Judd Apatow and John Krasinski speechless. Whether or not you agree with Haneke on Schindler’s List and the responsibility filmmakers must have when making war pictures, you must admit that there is plenty of truth in what he is saying. Hollywood handles these types of pictures and topics with awards in mind, compared to the international voices who do such films with a more pensive and genuine feel, like Haneke himself with The White Ribbon, the aforementioned Resnais with Night and Fog, as well as Elem Klimov with Come and See. There are many more examples you could name. The latest international director to deliver a careful and thought-out way to depict war through cinema is Roberto Minervini, 

His film, The Damned (playing in the Main Slate of this year’s New York Film Festival), is more focused on the silence that plagues a battlefield before the violence occurs–the psyche of these soldiers who must face potential death firsthand and their broken spirits. It demonstrates the psychological heaviness and fracture of beliefs that accompany these places and people disrupted by agony and warfare. Their lives were lost amidst the cataclysm. The Italian filmmaker focuses on the calm before the storm. Minervini does not want to dwell in the physical elements of war but more so on the mental side, seen through the eyes of those on the frontlines as they bask in the weather before the air smells of asphalt and gunpowder. 

The Damned is set in the winter of 1862 amidst the Civil War. We follow a group of volunteer Union soldiers heading to the uncharted territories of the West. They are first seen with their heads high, honoring the tradition of serving your country, as they march into the unknown; an organ-based score by composer Carlos Alfonso Corral accompanies each step they take. But something about these musical pieces feels off and hints at the imaginable. Each note has an ominous feel; Corral lets you know these soldiers’ headspace will switch soon enough. Despondency will lead the way so that later, Corral can take them on the actual journey, an existential one. 

The first chunk of The Damned relies on many scattered moments where we hear them share their beliefs, the reasons they joined, and the meaning of fighting for their country, and, in addition, to seeing them play cards, baseball, or skirmish. They are just passing the time the best they can while worrying about what’s next for them. It isn’t until one of the few action scenes, where we don’t see any explosions (just them running and occasionally shooting a couple of rounds), that the film turns into a darker-minded state. The score resounds more in the atmosphere; the gunshots become part of the ambient score to increase the effect. Their numbers go down; there are far fewer conversations, if any, during the couple of hours after. 

Silence covers their souls as they get their first glimpses of the atrocities of war. Their beliefs shift. The reason why they joined is now in flux due to experiencing these acts of violence. There’s one specific scene after the shoot-out in which the soldiers in the group left talk about God, life and death, and the ideologies of war within the religious beliefs. The two younger soldiers are keen on believing in what is good and evil and the security of an afterlife. However, the older ones, some of whom have spent plenty of time in the field, have grown to put aside those religious thoughts because of what they have seen throughout the Civil War. 

“I hope it stays that simple for you”, one of the older soldiers replies when one of the young ones expresses their thoughts on why he thinks they should believe in God and hold onto their faith. It is a cold answer to such vulnerable openness. Yet, it should set them straight and see all that is happening for what it is. These characters are not fully explored, nor do we get a broad insight into their psyches individually. However, Minervini studies their composure so that the viewer can get a hold of them as people tortured by a vision of honor plagued by false testaments and faux heroism. As many people have observed, they are expendable–disposable figures that rid themselves of “self” to make way for the canning havoc. 

The cast, played mainly by non-actors as rookies, have a way with their occasionally gauche lines that uplifts its overly thought-out nature and makes way for their humanity. The screenplay is the main issue that deviates The Damned from the existential toll it wants to build slowly. But I found myself gripped by the minimalist, and sometimes theatrical, approach to how Minervini frames these moments of self-reflection, each time becoming more psychologically confrontational. These beautifully shot frames and locations contrast with the damnation occurring on the far end of the scenery. It is a vast landscape, yet soldiers’ shifting conditions consume most. 

Minervini deviates from Haneke’s criticism and goes outside what we mostly see in war pictures. It might take a while until most viewers learn to appreciate these types of pictures, ones that break out the notion of modern war films. Hopefully, when The Damned releases formally, it starts to pave the way for such. Its experimentality comes from the minimalism needed to express the vain emotions and catharsis that boils during times like these. While it lacks in its dialogue set-pieces, humanism to each breath and tongue-tied factor increases as the film goes.

Grade: B-

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