Deserter
Review Date: Sundance, 2009
USA, 2008, 44min., color
Genre: Documentary Short
Producers: Big Noise Tactical
Website: www.bignoisefilms.org
Big Noise Tactical is a collective of media-makers dedicated to circulating beautiful, passionate, revolutionary images. They are not filmmakers producing and distributing their work. They are rebels weaving a network of skin and images, of dreams and bone, of solidarity and connection against the isolation, alienation and cynicism of capitalist decomposition.
Deserter is the journey a deserting soldier and his young wife take as they flee across the country to seek refugee status over the Canadian border. As they move from safe house to safe house, we get to know Ryan and Jen - two, shy, small-town kids from the California Central Valley. Ryan had joined the military because there were no jobs. According to him, he was promised by the recruiter that he would not have to go to Iraq. A war he believed was illegal and immoral. Deserter is a political road movie with one of the few happy endings that this war has given us.
Simply made in a modern reality style, Deserter reveals the motivations that tear Ryan from his family as well as a network of war resisters that harkens back to the Vietnam Conflict. Indeed, by the end of the film we witness the meeting of generations as Ryan and Jen meet the American war resister community in Canada. This heartfelt film reveals a side of the Iraq War that few see and even less talk about. Deserter is a fast paced and worthwhile documentary that should be seen by all generations of Americans; but especially those growing up in the shadow of 9/11 and the Bush Administration. Four Stars.
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