SLIFF 2017 Review – SURVIVING HOME

SURVIVING HOME screens Saturday, November 11th at 12:30pm st The Tivoli Theater (6350 Delmar) as part of this year’s St. Louis International Film Festival. C0-directors Jillian Moul and Matthew Moul will be in attendance. Ticket information can be found HERE

In honor of Veterans Day, SLIFF offers a free screening of SURVIVING HOME, an intimate documentary that follows four veterans over an eight-year period as they rebuild their lives after war. Interwoven with their stories are veterans’ voices from across the United States. The film’s principal subjects had vastly different combat experiences and challenges, and they’ve taken equally diverse paths on their difficult journeys to recovery. A World War II vet is part of a generation that stoically resists talking about their experiences. A Vietnam vet becomes a Buddhist monk in an attempt to reconcile his guilt over the people he killed. A severely burned Persian Gulf and Iraq War vet, who lost an arm on his fourth tour of duty, still wishes he could go back into combat. And a female Iraq War vet suffers less from the trauma of war than from the sexual assault she experienced at the hands of her “brothers.” Through perseverance, humor, inner reflection, strength, and a determination to help others, these vets overcome many obstacles, but the road ahead continues to bend in unexpected ways. Their unique paths of healing and discovery shed light on the long-term burdens of war and reveal the miraculous power of the human spirit.

Review of SURVIVING HOME by Stephen Tronicek:

What happens to people when they get home from the military or the Army? What happens when those profoundly attached to stressful experiences return to common society? Many films of this day attempt to answer this question, as more and more is brought to light about the way that the stressful environment of war can affect people. Thank You For Your Service, American Sniper, and The Hurt Locker have all included ideas of this, attempting to show the audience the flaws of our handling of these broken men and women. While those films may be admirable attempts to depict this issue, this film being about real people and about real situations hits profoundly hard.

SURVIVING HOME is beautiful in a way, a cry for understanding from those who have suffered at the hands of PTSD and other more physical scars. A cry for understanding for the people who actually go to war, presented in a way that makes it almost impossible to seem jingoistic because it presents simply the truth, flaws and all. Whereas fictional stories, such as the films mentioned before, are in some way forced to frame the events of war in a specific way, most stepping into either the reality that war is a nightmare or the idea that war is noble. Surviving Home, being a documentary, seems to frame it a little bit of both. Military life can be a rich, fulfilling option for many, but is a living nightmare for many people, both in the war and outside of the war.

The subjects, as often in a good documentary, are really incredible. Robert Henline is a wonderful, funny, man burned but strong. The documentary focusses mainly on his story of overcoming the wounds that he has both physically and mentally. There is also the story of a woman, whose wife is not given military benefits and her fight to gain those benefits. These are combined with different other stories about attempting to become people again. They all take pride in their service and want to think that all of it is noble, but they understand the violence that they imparted to others and how this broke them down. It is this understanding that makes the film so beautiful and encouraging.

SURVIVING HOME is an enriching documentary, reaching the types of sad and sentimental heights of something like the work of Spielberg. It reaffirms some hope in the frustrating darkness of the issues that it is covering. If you have the time, I’d gladly hope for you to see it and gain some more respect for the people who have served our country.