equinn-37228

Brilliant depiction of a soldier's experiences, one civilians can only imagine. Reveille is a throwback to the days when acting was subtle and provocative, when a mere gesture said it all, when understatement mattered. Ackerman takes us to the heart of the battlefield, to humanity in raw form in this artfully done, atmospheric depiction of war. Unconventionally, for a war flick, it slows down, pauses in all the right places underscoring the conflict of conscious, the self-preserving mechanism of laughter, the sanctity of loyalty and sacrifice, all present minus the distraction of frenetic energy and quick moving scenes. Instead, from the beginning, we agree to patience, to listen, reflect, ponder expressions, words, gestures, and all the while we're tricked by the dark humor and bonding of the Americans, but then jarred back to reality with a frequent panning of the camera to the Germans and their suffering, and so it goes back and forth, juxtaposing the two, laughter and pain, until the two are indistinguishable; and, hence, the psychological aspect, which makes it engrossing, disturbingly real, to the point where it's no longer about the enemy, or one side or the other, and war is deflated in a sense, absurdly irrelevant when weighed against a moral conscience. Masterpiece. Thank you for it!