Similar in its battlefield passages to last year's Danish-made "Armadillo," Dennis' film scores a layered perspective that follows Marine Sgt. Nathan Harris into combat and back home.
88
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
Dennis's film attempts something few documentaries have: to inhabit the psyche of its subject.
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.
80
Village Voice
Village Voice
Working alone with a camera and his ingenuity, Dennis captured the surreality of firefights with an invisible enemy and the frustration of displaced civilians.
80
EmpireDavid Parkinson
EmpireDavid Parkinson
A tough but deeply rewarding watch. Search it out.
80
New York Daily NewsElizabeth Weitzman
New York Daily NewsElizabeth Weitzman
As vital as the best war chronicles to come out in recent years, this is one every American ought to see.
Dennis refuses to push a political agenda down viewers' throats. But the message of his film -- a breathlessly paced look at the realities of war -- is clear: War and its aftermath are indeed hell.
63
Slant Magazine
Slant Magazine
Unlike most war documentaries, which tend to only skim the surface of its gun-toting subjects' lives, photojournalist Danfung Dennis's Hell and Back Again isn't content to merely capture warriors in combat.