The Damned (Momentum)
In this haunting film set in 1862 against the backdrop of the American Civil War, a group of volunteer Union soldiers sees their mission change course and gradually elude them.
Roberto Minervini is a multitalented artist whose award-winning work has revolved around American rural life and marginalised population. In The Damned, his first fully fictional film, he concentrates everything that makes up the myth of America: wide open spaces and the conquest of new territories by force of fire, the faith in God. But he does so in a way that runs counter to American cinematic dogma. No heroism, no good and bad guys, and a deliberately anti-spectacular mise-en-scène. Just the horror and misery of war at its simplest. Where a surprise attack by the enemy sees tough men slide into the shapes designed by the soil of the earth in foetal position, at the same time resisting and aware of their possible fate.
Minervini’s filmmaking gesture is at the same time precise and seemingly intuitive. Carlos Alfondo Corral casts his sublime light on this paradoxical wonder.