Minervini, who achieved success with three documentaries, made a comeback with a drama and won the Best Director award in the Un Certain Regard section at the Cannes Film Festival. He has dug into the soil of American society through the eyes of the other, and in The Damned, he seeks fundamental reflection from the period of the Civil War. His approach to filming remains the same, making the movie appear as if it were a documentary shot in 1862. A scouting party sent to the frontier finds their faith tested in an unknown land. Believing that God is on their side, the scouts face an incredible irony, which rises from a situation where an invisible enemy is constantly imagined, and Minervini gets to the root of the question. The film, with only a 7-minute shooting sequence, is more like a re-examination of the Western genre than a war historical drama. The hero who led the cavalry and the community has vanished, leaving a few disoriented and exhausted soldiers wandering through the wilderness and snowfields. It is a thoughtful Western film that falsifies the western myth of white settlers. (LEE Yong Cheol)