6.7 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
What does it mean to lead men in war? What does it mean to come home? Hell and Back Again is a cinematically revolutionary film that asks and answers these questions with a power and intimacy no previous film about the conflict in Afghanistan has been able to achieve. It is a masterpiece in the cinema of war.
Director: Danfung DennisHistory | 100% |
Documentary | 62% |
Action | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
DVD copy
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 3.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Update: Hell and Back Again has been nominated for an Oscar for Best Documentary Feature.
Little boys love to play war, and older boys love to play videogames glorifying battle, and even older boys traipse off to
foreign lands where they serve in our armed forces and find out that reality isn’t always as painless as gameplay. That,
in a nutshell, is part of the subtext of the riveting new documentary Hell and Back Again, a piece that kind of
plays like the filmic flip side to last year’s equally riveting Restrepo. As with Restrepo, Hell and Back Again follows some of our
American soldiers into Afghanistan, in this case members of Echo Company, 2nd Battalion, 8th Marines. Again as with
Restrepo a fighting force is sent into the far reaches of Afghanistan to try to root out the Taliban insurgency.
However, unlike Restrepo, Hell and Back Again actually focuses on just one soldier instead of an entire
squadron, and in fact takes the fighting in Afghanistan as only a prelude of sorts, before the documentary gets into the
nuts and bolts of what returning servicemen go through as they attempt to rematriculate back into stateside life.
Sergeant Nathan Harris is the main character of Hell and Back Again, a leader in Afghanistan who is returned to
the United States with a debilitating hip injury which confines him to a wheelchair and requires hours of physical
therapy every day. But even more debilitating than his physical injury is Sgt. Harris’ emotional trauma, something which
may not erupt with seething diplays of near breakdowns, but which is evident nonetheless. In truly ironic fashion,
however, that doesn’t stop Harris from visiting his local Wal-Mart to pick up the latest Call of Duty game, which
he plays with some relish at home. As they say, boys will be boys.
Hell and Back Again is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Docurama and New Video with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. Director (and actual camera operator) Danfung Dennis cobbled together his own camera and sound recording system for the embedded portions of this piece, which Dennis describes in some considerable technical detail in one of the supplements. The film was shot digitally, but incredibly the war sequences were done on a modified camera that was initially meant just for web videos! Despite that seeming drawback, Dennis has managed to get some spectacularly clear and well defined imagery here, something that the Blu-ray, for the most part, reproduces easily. While some of the Afghanistan imagery is somewhat blurry and soft (due in no small part to the omnipresent dust and haze blowing through, not to mention other dirt kicked up by gunfire and helicopter rotors), overall this is a perhaps surprisingly sharp looking transfer. The homebound sequences are much more stable, though a lot of the interior segments shot in poor (to actually no) lighting within the Harris home suffer from crush and a complete loss of shadow detail. But close-ups often reveal a wealth of fine detail (some of the shots of Harris' scar may make some folks a bit squeamish, and one horrifying shot in Afghanistan of a Marine literally blown to pieces is among the most disturbing things I've personally ever seen).
The opening menu for Hell and Back Again features a blistering DTS-HD Master 2.0 soundtrack which assaults the listener with massed drums and gunfire, but even that opening gives little indication of the force of the actual feature, which is presented with a full DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix. When you take into consideration the cobbled together camera and sound recording units director Danfung Dennis had to make himself in order to get the Afghanistan sequences (where the most bombastic audio occurs, not to state the obvious), it's truly remarkable with how immersive, indeed disturbingly so at times, this track really is. LFE pummels the listener with repeated explosions and gunfire and the panicked calls of Marines trying to find each other or to mobilize effectively against the Taliban is extremely involving. Things are considerably quieter back in the stateside sequences, with the one caveat (discussed in the review above) of Dennis and editor Otway's perhaps questionable decision to utilize sound from the Afghanistan sequences as a sort of aural backdrop for Harris' troubled mental state. But the fact that this track easily handles both the battle scenes as well as the recovery ones speaks to its incredible dynamic range. Fidelity is also excellent throughout, for the most part, though a couple of huge explosions in the Afghanistan battle sequences do tend to distort slightly.
Some of the critics lavishing praise on Hell and Back Again seem to think there has never been a previous film experience showing the emotional turbulence of returning vets. Anyone hear of a little film called The Best Years of Our Lives, folks? Of course Hell and Back Again is a documentary, and it does in fact present some extremely emotional footage of Sergeant Harris and his wife trying to come to grips with Harris' physical and emotional needs. My only real complaint with this piece is its none too subtle manipulation of the audience with regard to its sound design. Did we really need to hear the sounds of battle as a backdrop to Harris holding his head in dismay and begging for the strength not to kill himself? Isn't that kind of up close and personal footage enough, without the imposed aural "commentary"? Other than that, though, this is riveting filmmaking that makes a considerable impact. For anyone who was moved by Restrepo last year, this makes an extremely potent companion piece. Highly recommended.
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