In the winter of 1862, during the Civil War, the US Army sent a company of volunteers to patrol the uncharted western territories. Minervini built the set in Montana, after which the Actors let them live in it for two months. The dialogues and ideas presented are those that the Actors came up with in Living in the Wilderness, imagining themselves to be Civil War soldiers. The Cursed: In the winter of 1862, a volunteer unit of Union soldiers is sent to defend a mountain range, we are not told where it is, we don’t even get the names of the soldiers. The regulars are on the move, under a John Brown-style patriarch with a scraggly beard in command, and his teenage son has also enlisted. The crowd is mixed, some middle-aged, even old, most in their thirties. All lack military experience, They share knowledge and skills are transferred. We witness moving guards, distant riders. Buffalo is shot and slaughtered, the bleak landscape, the hills, the mountain meadows, the drifting snow, the cold rations running low add to the developing existential despair. The battle happens, we don’t see the enemy, we see the casualties of the unit. War is hell, especially when you no longer know why you are there. Very much a Ken Loach style movie with no dialogue day in and day out and lots of regular people acting, amateurs like soldiers. This improvisation leads to philosophical, religious and political discussions around campfires. Some of them are welcome. But that’s a minor distraction from this brutal depiction of men at war. Written and directed by Roberto Minervini, 8/10.