War Stories

Reviewed by Darren Guy

Contemplative short films for violent times.
Sheikh Attack
Trembling Time
The most memorable of the three films was: Cul de Sac: A Suburban War Story
Dir: Gareth Scott.

Remember the guy who stole and drove the tank through the suburbs of San Diego, rolling over cars and trees, heading for city hall? Well this film is about the life of the guy who drove that tank, Shawn Nelson. Like Michael Moore it gives an insight into the alienation, loneliness and spiritual poverty of suburban San Diego, economically devastated after factory closures and the advent of drugs. It visits family and friends of Nelson; and we find a man, spiralling into loneliness, trying to befriend and help out the local drug abusers, and then, in a country where money is everything, and if you don’t have it you’re nothing, he desperately tries to save himself by digging a 18 foot mineshaft in his back garden, believing gold is underneath. When all this failed, he stole the tank. It offers up the disturbing naivety of his family, friends and neighbours – some caught between wisdom and madness. It would seem if he had reached city hall, before the cops shot him dead that might have been the his sanest reaction in the unreal world most Americans seem to inhabit.