The Damned

In a moment where war seems to permeate every element of our lives, celebrated Italian-born, American-based filmmaker Roberto Minervini upends both the historical war genre and the western with a quiet and spare approach, at once philosophical and radically humane. Informed by his previous films made in the American South, where he lived for a decade — in which dramatized and observational elements are compellingly entangled — The Damned embeds itself within a troupe of volunteer Union soldiers dispatched by the US Army to the western territories during the winter of 1862. A pivotal year for the gold rush as well as the ongoing Civil War, these uncharted borderlands were rife with historical significance, promise, and unseen menace.

Shot in the wilds of Montana with a small ensemble of non-professional actors — many cast from within the vicinity — whose extemporized dialogue largely stems from personal experience, The Damned portrays war as a profoundly intimate and disorienting journey. Stripping conflict to its essence, with lonely, anxiety-inducing stretches of waiting to kill or be killed set against great, gorgeous expanses, Minervini captures with stunning immediacy an intense sense of physicality and the attendant psychological strain.

From their largely marginal positions, these intergenerational mercenaries enter into deep reflection about their mission, raising questions about religion, masculinity, individual hopes, and governance with disarming candour and bracing contemporaneity. While The Damned’s narrative framework is rooted in a major turning point in American history, its meditation on nation-building and human agency, as well as its uncanny and ruptured sense of time, speak to our loaded present.

ANDRÉA PICARD

Content advisory: violence