Three of the U.S. soldiers in Reveille (Buffalo 8)

Films about World War II tend to be grand, sweeping epics full of explosions and sacrifice. With Reveille, writer/director Michael Akkerman takes a different tactic. Taking a fly-on-the-wall approach, he focuses on small intimate moments, on the shared humanity and horror of the circumstances American and German soldiers find themselves in and the choices they, at every moment, have to make. There is very little action, guns are rarely drawn, and yet Akkerman manages to slowly build tension by focusing on the mundane moments in between firefights.

Set in central Italy in 1943, Akkerman’s script moves fluidly between prisoners and soldiers and soldiers who become prisoners. We feel as if we are overhearing conversations, and it turns out most soldiers have the same singular concern, to return home. One German soldier writes to his wife at least every couple of weeks, regardless that he hasn’t received a letter from her in a year. An American soldier can’t wait to get back home to “drinkin’ and screwin’” because “What else is there.”

It’s not as if Akkerman avoids cliches. Each soldier is a type: the fresh-faced recruit, the by the book sergeant, the self-centered drunk. They’re all here. It’s how fresh, honest, and intimate the dialogue and interactions are that makes Reveille a cut above your average war film. It feels lived in. One parallel I can make is William A. Wellman’s Battlefield from 1949, which was also a low-budget film that focused on a small group of grunts. Both movies drill down on the motives of the soldiers and how they cope under extraordinary circumstances. What also makes Akkerman’s film stand out is a strong attempt at historical accuracy. In his research, he talked to relatives of WWII veterans for a more honest view of what went down on the ground. This gives his film a rawness, if not in the physical violence that is the part and parcel of war, but the emotional state of mind of the soldiers.

Akkerman and cinematographer Cooper Shine manage to make much of the setting (the Ozarks standing in for Italy). Half of it takes place in a cave, and without showing off, Shine manages to keep the shots varied. Kudos also has to sound designer Kevin Thorn. Though all the explosions are offscreen, he manages to make us feel the soldiers are under attack, and in the quietest moments, he finds a way to put us in the soldier’s shoes with ambient noise alone.

Altogether, this is an impressive film, told on a shoestring budget that doesn’t sentimentalize or glorify war, but rather quietly and forcefully lets us into an average soldier’s thoughts as they face choices that are near impossible for a civilian to contemplate.