Unlike earlier generations of injured veterans, American soldiers who have been wounded in Iraq or Afghanistan have received quite a bit of attention. Even “Dolphin Tale,” a film aimed at young children, has a subplot involving wartime injuries.
These glimpses into disrupted lives, though, can have a prepackaged, almost sanitized feel, no matter how graphic. The overall point is the resilience of those involved. But “Hell and Back Again,” a documentary by Danfung Dennis that zeros in on one sergeant in Afghanistan, is more unvarnished and ambiguous, which makes it more disturbing.
Dennis, a photojournalist, accompanied Marines from Echo Company on a 2009 push in southern Afghanistan. When one Marine, Sgt. Nathan Harris, was shot, Dennis followed him back to North Carolina and documented his efforts to recover from a shattered hip and leg.
The film cuts back and forth between Dennis’ visceral battlefront footage and Harris’ rehabilitation to jolting effect. You can feel just how jarring and stressful it must be for a soldier to go from the life-and-death adrenaline rush of war to the maddeningly slow world of rehabilitation and forced inactivity.
And Harris — the film’s publicity material gives his age as 25 — is not exactly the Soldier From Central Casting. He’s plain-spoken and not overly articulate, and his attitude toward his wife, Ashley, during his convalescence can be gruff. Most disturbing is his habit of using a pistol as a plaything, as if courting some kind of personal disaster. By the end of this film, it’s not at all clear that this will be a happily-ever-after household going forward.
