Roberto Minervini’s “The Damned” focuses on the broader interests of the Italian auteur: he has been studying, in the course of his career, the divisive and the unifying themes in the life of various segments of the American society. Set quite far from the battle lines of a Civil War, Minervini takes the viewer back to the Civil War from the perspective of undivided men in a calm.
One battle with an invisible enemy seems to disturb the peace: in 1862, a band of Union scouts was deployed to the northwestern frontier. Although the nation is torn apart, this assignment, in which soldiers from multiple corners of the country participate, manages to integrate men (and surprisingly, the topic of slavery never comes up, even if the name of God occurs repeatedly).
This is the first period piece of the director who made the hit films such as “Stop the Pounding Heart” and “The Other Side” and has seen at first hand what contemporary southern US life is truly like, and yet this soft and from time to time rather lyrical film fits within the framework of Minervini’s work in a natural way, expanding its topics and creative methods.
Of course, within the art house movie’s boundaries, it reeks of extreme thinness and almost no plot to please the majority audience. (I amused myself when the phrase ‘story by’ appeared on the screen, as I had not perceived much of a narrative up till then.) However, ‘The Damned’ fits well into the pattern of the author who has a very constructed view of America’s perception of religion, social status and identity as a society, even if that society doesn’t quite see it the same way.
In the first thirty minutes of the movie, there are brief references to the scouts’ activities on the frontier. As a team they move toward a covered wagon which is stationed on a steep slope. For what purpose? This is the one task that is quite broad, and is only explained briefly through text at the beginning of the movie.
One typical male character is focused on the art of gold digging, he being a bit elderly than other fellows. Settled in one place, they reach for the single blackened cameral kettle and drink strained coffee from broken cups. It is real dialogue through acting. And who knows how Minervini wanted his protagonists to make a strong attempt to recreate the very conflicts, and faiths essential in America, which were not crucial at this point in time.
He is, geographically, very much away from Southern townees who have previously intrigued him, swapping Texas hinterlands and Louisiana marshes for Montana highlands. In one of the slow-motion frames of the movie’s initial scene, wolves swarmed over a deer carcass. This small element would help set up the possibility of threat or violence, but the film fails to catch up on this point.
These cold weather conditions are as lethal to these Union army volunteers as the Confederate soldiers, as depicted in one of the most disturbing parts of the film: Two dead bodies are covered in snow, while their horse is straining to escape from a rope tethering around him.
Tim Carlson, of the family featured in ‘Stop the Pounding Heart’ as the Sergeant, is featured in many daguerreotypes of the time, making the men in Minervini’s cast appear more like real soldiers than professional actors if one looks at their full beards and blunt features.
In Minervini’s films there is some time for characters to come and go and ‘The Damned’ is no exception, even with its more rigid setup. A group of troops are sent to Montana, initially forming a bond among themselves, only for their number to be significantly reduced after a skirmish with Confederate sharpshooters.
Minervini’s work has always been a feature that sits between pure documentary and fiction of sorts, and here – in Civil War re-enactment mode, as the actors are actors performing as themselves in costume – he depicts the ambush as a battle photographer might.
Whenever a soldier had to stay put in a place for cover, the crane camera DP Carlos Alfonso Corral chased after him. The soldiers are hearing faint enemy voices, some bullets being shot in their careless direction but are unable to see them due to their own inability to gauge the position of the enemy, making things even more confounding.
Then again, does one consider the film “The Damned” a war film overall? To some extent, the more restrained style may evoke the enthusiasm in the viewers of the “Oregon Trail” saga of Kelly Reichardt in that both films which are set less than two decades apart and two states apart provide an sub-altern to the normative Hollywood western.
The Damned doesn’t make even an effort to name its characters for instance, the film’s makers, who instead of concentrating on the single heroic figure – the ideal person adored by such actors as John Wayne or Henry Fonda in the 20th century, focus on the diverse assembled faces of society which makes it the 21st Century.
That is something that so many war movies tend to ignore: The fact that when they join the Army, a Man has made a choice to sacrifice himself for the cause. It is their obligation to follow command which may sometimes seem quite absurd, however in Hollywood movies (over the past forty years or so), obedience is almost always considered as a bad thing and the only way to get things done is to rebel against the norm. In real life, that kind of attitude would almost probably get that fanatic –and many of his pals– killed.
Minervini ignores such stereotypes while permitting his characters, among them Young Soldier (Judah Carlson), a youthful lad who joins the army without earning an identity, the room to ponder on the reasons they enrolled. They argue about God, argue about the essence of good and evil or the lack thereof, and wrestle with their growing sense of disenchantment. “The Damned” wanders, but in wandering it attempts to become something real.
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