In the script, one of the soldiers mentions the "Zeitgeist" movies (March 2, 2013), in relation to the control of the world by the military-industrial complex.
Monday, December 30, 2013
"Where Soldiers Come From" is a riveting documentary of the deployment of three friends in a Michigan National Guard unit
“Where Soldiers Come From”, by Heather Courtney (2011) for
ITVS and PBS POV, traces the lives of three boyhood friends from the Upper
Peninsula of Michigan when they join the and ordnance unit of the Michigan
National Guard (at least partly for income) and get deployed in Afghanistan removing
IED’s in what has suddenly become, as Bob Woodruff describes it, “Obama’s War”.
The film, sponsored by Sundance, is striking in the range of
its cinematography. I don’t know how the
filmmakers were able to follow the soldiers so carefully on missions in
Afghanistan, interacting with villagers and finding mines (which are more than “roadside
attractions”). The beauty of the country
comes through, as in one shot there are two ranges of mountains at varied
depths, the second a snow-capped ridge out of a Tolkien movie. In contrast is the scenery around the grimy
working class towns in Upper Michigan, the pine ridges, and the seascapes along
Lake Superior, with a couple if extraterrestrial sunsets, particularly around
an old lighthouse that I remember seeing in a May 1992 visit to the area. Some
of the local photography is in razor black and white.
Of the three chums, Dominic Fredianelli is the most charismatic
and notable, at least at first. Dom has become a graffiti artist, painting
murals on walls around town. The other
two men are Cole Smith and Matt Beaudoin (or “Bodi”). They feel better about being deployed
together because they can watch each other’s backs. The clapboard living quarters in Afghanistan
are not that bad. They have TV and
high-speed Internet and can talk to family back home by Skype (even on the
MacIntosh). The road trips, looking for
bombs to detonate, are harrowing. One
time, they run over a device and the Humvee is toppled. Dom is evacuated and
allowed some medical leave, but does not seem to have any visible injury. Later, we learn that all three men are
concerned about concussion exposure, the other two men more than Dom
eventually. The effect on the brain of
the explosions is comparable to twenty years of pro football.
At one point, Dom finds a device and reports it to military
police. Soon, the father in an Afghan
village who planted it is arrested and put in prison. Dom says that the man
probably planted the device because a Taliban soldier threatened his family and
offered money.
At the end, the men come back, more irritable and changed.
Dom starts to go to college at age 22.
Is the film a viewpoint on the way our young people (and
older adults) share the risk of defending the country in a volunteer Army,
given the economic pressures to join? I know the issue from the experience of
being drafted but after getting my M.A. in Math, when I could “get out” of
deployment to Vietnam.
In the script, one of the soldiers mentions the "Zeitgeist" movies (March 2, 2013), in relation to the control of the world by the military-industrial complex.
In the script, one of the soldiers mentions the "Zeitgeist" movies (March 2, 2013), in relation to the control of the world by the military-industrial complex.
The POV Q&A for
the film is here.
The distributor is “International Film Circuit”.
Wikipedia attribution link for picture of lake in Porcupine
Mountains
Labels:
AFI Silverdocs,
indie documentary,
military,
PBS-related,
Sundance
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