Sundance offers several warrelated films worth seeing
January 31st, 2008, 2:12 am Hobbies Ideas
You don’t have to look too far this year to find the more sobering, military side of Sundance amid the handful of war-related films being offered.
After so many years of continued occupation of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, filmmakers are still finding different and compelling angles to cover.
To the credit of Slamdance (go to the top of Main Street in Park City), they have screenings Thursday for a film called, “Frontrunner,” about a woman who runs against 16 men for president of Afghanistan. Two words about this movie’s relevance and timeliness: Benazir Bhutto.
Sundance has the Morgan Spurlock (”Super Size Me”) documentary “Where in the World Is Osama bin Laden?” There is also “Under the Bombs,” described as part narrative, part documentary about a Lebanese woman who tries to find her family in the summer of 2006 after Lebanon was bombed for 34 days straight (language in the film is Lebanese, with English subtitles).
In the meantime, last year’s heartiest slap back to reality in the military vein during Sundance was delivered in dramatic fashion via James Strouse’s powerful “Grace Is Gone.” It was picked up for mass distribution after the festival to the tune of about $4 million.
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John Cusack stars as the conservative Stanley Phillips, who loses his wife in the Iraq war and then takes an unusual, heart-rending path toward breaking the news to his two young daughters, played by Gracie Bednarczyk and Shelan O’Keefe.
Near the beginning of “Grace,” you’ll about stop breathing from the moment Phillips opens the front door of his home one morning to the ominous presence of two soldiers, there to deliver the bad news. By the end, you can expect to be emotionally drained.
The film won Sundance’s 2007 Audience Award and Best Screenplay honors. You can see a trailer at www.graceisgone-themovie.com.
It’s now in theaters. Go see it. Bring tissues.
This year there is a documentary called “An American Soldier,” which is director Edet Belzberg’s dive into the waters of Army recruitment, focusing on one of the Army’s most successful recruiters ever. (The next screening is Friday.)
The reality here is that, despite nearly 4,000 U.S. military deaths from the Iraq war since 2003, recruitment goals nationally are being met. It will be interesting to see in Belzberg’s film how the best recruiters get it done. One answer may lie in the main character of a movie written by Eric Schmid in this year’s festival.
The fictional drama “American Son” has great potential for leaving a lasting impression on viewers as the film follows the character of actor Nick Cannon in the days before the young Marine is supposed to deploy to Iraq. (There are screenings Thursday and Friday.)
The movie was directed by Neil Abramson, who previously traveled to Uganda for his documentary “Soldier Child,” which is about how children are torn from their homes to become soldiers in the rebel group called Lord’s Resistance Army.
“American Son” chronicles a four-day leave for the marine, who quickly falls in love with Melonie Diaz’s character, who he met on the bus ride back to his home in a low-income neighborhood in Bakersfield, Calif. The dialogue is over-the-top raw with f-bombs and there is some brief nudity.
One takeaway from this movie, however, is the idea that there are an abundance of young men in this country, like Cannon’s character, who possess some combination of a need to prove something to themselves, who want an outlet for their bravado, who want to better themselves and who want more meaning and identity in their lives other than just being known for the cars they drive or where they come from. Recruiters know where to find these men and they know how to talk to them.
It’s 2008. The reality is that U.S. troops are still being shot at, blown up, maimed and killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. The fears and personal lives put on hold for those who signed on the dotted line and are about to deploy, are real. “American Son” is a fictional, but very real glimpse into those lives.
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