Men Go to Battle

The story is about 2 brothers in Kentucky, Francis and Henry, hard pressed economically, in the winter at the start of the American Civil War, 1861. They live on a farm overrun by weeds. The brothers horse around at a camp fire one night with knives and Henry gets a bad cut. They seek medical help at the estate of the Smalls, a well to-do shopkeeper family in the area. While waiting for Henry to be treated, Francis socializes with the Smalls and their guests at a party being held there. Henry returns, see his brother socializing, feels left out and disappears into the darkness. Francis, now alone, take steps to work the land. Meanwhile, Henry joins the union army and enjoys a life of getting 3 square meals a day in exchange for his service. The two brothers correspond by letter, each forging their own destiny. The climax comes when Henry's unit is overrun and wiped out in a battle. Being the lone survivor, he reject military life, deserts, and makes his way back to the Kentucky farm. Upon arriving at the farm, Henry discovers Francis is now a successful tobacco farmer and married to a Small. The Smalls, on the other hand have lost their business and are out in the cold. This movie is a parable about how one pursues his vision of possibility for the future and another forgoes that and settles for a life of basic survival. This is a universal lesson in life. Each moment, the universe hold an infinite number of possibilities. We choose only one in this life. What we choose can lead to a life from rags to riches or a life of rags to one of being a wandering army deserter.

Obviously, there are viewers who love this movie and others who hate it. I love it. It's atmospheric, with clear ties to a particular place (rural Kentucky) and time (early in the Civil War). The relationship between the brothers is full contradictions and conflict as well as brotherly love and disappointment--if you like movies about relationships, it's fascinating. I was left wondering what happens to Henry, the more complex and conflicted brother, who disappears at dawn at the end of the movie.

I don't recommend this for people looking for a "war flick", but there are some viewers, myself included, who think this movie is a gem (and have no "financial interest" in it, as one reviewer seems to think). We just don't all like the same things, right?

Not only the best 'indie' I've ever seen -- by FAR -- but one of the best historical movies I've ever seen. For an hour and a half I really felt like I'd wandered around rural America during the Civil War.

As the previous reviewer commented, this is a movie about textures, not plot. The dialogue is spare, very spare; the accents feel authentic, so much so that there are moments when it's hard to make out what they're saying -- but it doesn't matter. Plot points, such as they are, don't come out in dialogue as much as through the flow of images. Nobody talks about relationships -- they don't talk much at all, which feels 'right' for the place and time -- rather, we sense the relationships through how people look at each other, how they react, wordlessly, to each other's behavior.

The casting is excellent, too. With one minor exception, all the people in the film feel like figures from that era. This is a very hard thing to achieve, you really have to work hard to find actors who don't have that contemporary energy -- but they pulled it off.

It's involving, it's seductive in how it reels you in, it's just all-around impressive as hell.

One bit of advice: if at all possible, do not wait for this to appear on DVD or streaming video. GO SEE IT in a theater, it will be a much better experience.

Honestly, I haven't been this impressed with something in ages.

It's difficult to comprehend what it is some reviewers saw in this film. I see some of them saying it was like looking through a window into another time, and I suppose there may be some truth to that. But imagine someone looking through a window into your life on a random, drab, uneventful day, and how bored they would be watching you go through your daily routine. That is essentially this film.

Except it is worse than that. The characters rarely speak, and when they do it is never meaningful, just the stuttering utterances of awkward, unintelligent men as they stumble through the mundane events of their rural lives. There is virtually no emotion in any of the characters: they are all drab, dour, and boring. Emotional characters whose motivations and desires are clear and relatable can sometimes draw us into something even if it lacks a compelling plot, but this film has neither. Not only does it lack a compelling plot, it lacks any plot at all. There is no pacing to the story: no rise, no fall, no drama. The film even managed to make a civil war battle seem drab and boring. The character who goes to war is not animated even when life and death hang in the balance. He shows no fear, no passion, none of the hatred for the enemy that men summon to compel them to kill before their foes kill their friend and themselves. He seems to have a friend who reads and writes letters for him, but we do not see whether his friend falls in battle, and he certainly never looks for him.

Understated is not always bad, but this film stretches it to unstated. The film has nothing to say, nothing to show us, and absolutely no point. I simply cannot imagine how anyone would come away from this experience not feeling like they were robbed of their time. If not for the anticipation of hoping that something might happen (nothing does), I could have had the same experience watching paint dry, and would have come away no less emotionally or intellectually satisfied.

As a final note, the title of this film feels quite inappropriate. There is no conflict in the film to which that assertion applies, and if it is merely a statement of what the film is supposed to be about, it is also incorrect. If they're just trying to tell us what's going to happen (almost nothing), it should rightly be "A Man Goes to a Battle, While Another Does Not" and neither has any clear reason or motivation for doing or not doing these things. I thought perhaps toward the end there might be a conflict, the brother who stayed resenting the brother who left for abandoning him, and the brother who left thinking the brother who stayed a coward, or something, and perhaps telling him that "Men Go to Battle" as a challenge to his manhood. Alas, conflict would require emotion, and both conflict and emotion seem utterly beyond the abilities or intentions of the filmmakers. Instead the characters simply plod along, and the paint slowly dries.

If you want to know what average people looked like during the Civil War...and didn't want to bother following someone smart, or rich or witty, this movie is for you. You will give it 10 stars.

If you want to see action, you won't like this movie. If you want to see the usual beauties that Hollywood throws at us in every role, you won't like this movie. If you want to see plot, you will HATE this movie.

It felt like someone took Napoleon Dynamite and dropped him into the Civil War era, without any of the laughs.