[yasr_overall_rating]
A dramatic psychological thriller about a female Marine veteran and the struggle to return home.
I am a huge movie lover in general. I love the big summer blockbusters, I grew up on them living back in Dublin, Ireland, when we didn’t have much else to occupy our childhoods with but at the same time, I love truly independent films. They break away from conventional storytelling that the big studio movies are afraid to incorporate because, let’s be honest, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, but that is exactly the joy I find in indie films. And the fact that I have been an indie filmmaker for the past thirty years, means not only do I enjoy watching them as a movie lover and film critic, but that I can relate to them as a filmmaker so when a movie like “Blood Stripe” comes along, while I can most certainly appreciate the screenplay, the directing, the performances and the cinematography, I can also identify with the behind-the-scenes conviction and tenacity it takes just to make a film.
As the movie begins, we are introduced to Our Sergeant (her name is never revealed and she is played unwaveringly by Kate Nowlin), a Marine veteran returning from her third tour of duty in Afghanistan. As she tries to reconnect with her lackadaisical husband Rusty (Chris Sullivan), she finds no consolation in the things that used to mean so much to her; family, friends, home, so one day she takes off for the summer camp she occupied one year when she was a child, hoping it will help restore some semblance of the person she once was. She meets Dot (Rusty Schwimmer), the owner of the camp and because it is the off-season, Dot hires her to help get the place ready. She is given her own cabin and does odd jobs as needed.
While there, a church retreat rents the facility for a week and she meets The Fisherman (Tom Lipinski), a local who lives on the lake in a nearby cabin. While enjoying the isolation and seclusion the camp has to offer, it quickly becomes apparent that she is suffering from PTSD, succumbing to flashbacks, hallucinations, difficulty sleeping, and the only way she can turn it off, is by drinking. It numbs the pain and helps her feel somewhat normal but at the same time, it makes her vulnerable, a feeling she obviously detests. As the weeks roll by, her condition progressively worsens whereby she frequents the local bar, just to have some guise of normalcy. Refusing any and all offers of help from her co-workers, one night she takes drastic action, an undertaking that will affect not just her but those around her, for the rest of their lives.
Director Remy Auberjonois has created a magnificently moving portrait of a soldier trying to reintegrate into civilian life after going through hell in Afghanistan. While her family and friends are glad to have her back, try as they may, they cannot relate to her on a militaristic level so she winds up by herself, emotionally and physically. The film thankfully never shows us what she went through, instead, it relies on Kate Nowlin’s monumental performance to help us understand just a little of what she must have experienced. We see scars on her back, as witnessed in one shot, and the obvious emotional distress she quite often falls victim to but Ms. Nowlin’s portrayal of a soldier too far gone, is quite astonishing and is one of the most unpretentious and natural performances I have seen in some time. As she discovers the camp she went to as a young child, one can’t help but feel empathy for her, as she tries to go back in time to a period in her life before her tour in Afghanistan, in the hopes that it will somehow eradicate those memories.
The filmmakers also have to be commended for telling a story about a female Marine as the majority of movies about soldiers returning from war, suffering from PTSD, concentrate solely on men. In the end however, war is hell and it does not discriminate against genders, it takes its toll on whomever it finds in its path. “Blood Stripe” is a towering achievement and it illustrates the fact that sometimes, the war at home can be just as bad, if not worse, than the battle itself.
“Blood Stripe” premiered at the Los Angeles Film Festival June 2nd
