Cinema Can Do the Present: The Damned

At Potsdamer Platz, Arsenal has taken on the task of regularly presenting current films by contemporary filmmakers (usually as part of comprehensive retrospective) that otherwise would not show in Berlin due to their lack of a German distributor, allowing a connection to aesthetically advanced international cinema to be maintained. It goes without saying that Roberto Minervini’s THE DAMNED also belongs to this category. We are showing this impressive film about war as a Berlin premiere – not least to honor how the film also speaks of the present in historical garb, quietly and with a great deal of thought. A small unit of soldiers is on patrol during the American Civil War in order to protect the unexplored border areas to the west. Images that play with different degrees of focus show how they keep watch, busy themselves with their horses, smoke, play, pray. They scour the barren landscape and see nothing. They talk about their reasons for volunteering to go to war: God, the country, a good cause. And they wait as the question of what it all means becomes louder and louder. (bik)