“Vital, often devastating.” – Elizabeth Weitzman, Daily News
“(With) commentary from war-writing heavyweights like Tobias Wolff and Tim O’Brien,
the soldiers’ narratives graphically elucidate the terror, boredom, rage and sense of loss that characterize life in a war zone.
The accounts gain extra immediacy from director Richard E. Robbins’s inventive reenactments and reconceptions.”
– Mark Holcomb, Time Out NY
“Helps you realize how successfully the Pentagon’s campaign to keep images of combat and of the dead and dying
out of the news media has insulated the American public from the Iraq war’s tragic reality.”
– Stephen Holden, The New York Times
“These stories of heartache, confusion, and anger combine to form a gallery of art that illuminates
the conundrums of warfare and testifies to the philosophical instincts of the American soldier.”
– Ed Gonzalez, Village Voice
“For those with a literary bent and open mind, it’s highly worth seeing.
Lending a tragic context and depth to the proceedings,
Robbins also interviews war writers of older generations.
(The film) builds to a powerful crescendo, and the haunting poem that ends the film… is a showstopper.”
– Andrew O’Hehir, Salon.com
“Deeply humanizing. Makes a strong statement about a brave group of people – the American military –
who are far too often sadly and tragically misunderstood.”
– Dan Dunn, Metro
“Eloquent. Stirring. Potent.” – Nick Schager, Slant
OPERATION HOMECOMING is a unique documentary that explores the firsthand accounts of American troops through their own words. The film is built upon a project created by the National Endowment for the Arts to gather
the writing of soldiers and their families who have participated in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Through interviews and dramatic readings by such actors as Robert Duvall, Josh Lucas, Beau Bridges, Blair Underwood,
Justin Kirk, Aaron Eckhart, Chris Gorham and John Krasinski, the film transforms selections from this collection of writing into a deep examination of the experiences of the men and women who are serving in America’s armed
forces. At the same time it provides depth and context to these experiences through a broader look at the universal themes of war literature.
The writing in OPERATION HOMECOMING covers the full spectrum - poetry, fiction, memoir, letters, journals, and
essays. The stories recounted here are sad, funny, violent, and uplifting. Yet each one displays an honesty and intensity that is rarely seen in explorations of the war. Through an extraordinary group of men and women, it offers a
profound window into the human side of America’s current conflicts.
The NEA’s Operation Homecoming initiative has collected more than sixteen hundred pieces of writing from service members and their families. The film takes a handful of this writing as a central element – presenting powerful
readings of the soldier’s words. These readings are brought to the screen through a variety of innovative filmmaking techniques that push the boundaries of traditional documentary, but avoid clumsy re-creations. Some stories are told
through archival news images of the war. Several use striking visual collages to accompany the words of a poem. A few will move even farther a field to illustration or animated still photographs, yet always rooted in a reading of the
writer’s original words.
Beyond the words, the film finds breadth and depth for understanding the stories through interviews with both the writers, as well as other veterans who have gone on to make valuable contributions to the literature of war. The film
meets the writers themselves, now returned from the war zone, but still struggling to find meaning in the incredible extremes they lived through. Through conversations with great writers like Tim O’Brien, Tobias Wolff, or James
Salter, the film reveals that these are universal experiences for men and women in combat.
At the core of the writing in OPERATION HOMECOMING is a deep desire by all those who have served in war to come to terms with their experiences. Throughout the film the soldiers, young and old, express a profound hope that people will listen to their stories and try to understand what they have seen. As with all of the great war writers, stretching back as far as the Iliad, the soldier writers of Operation Homecoming are trying to find meaning in the chaos and brutality of war. This film is a deeply humanizing look at those who suffer the de-humanization of war.
2007 • 81 minutes • A production of The Documentary Group
Available at Amazon:
OPERATION HOMECOMING
edited by Andrew Carroll |
