I was ready to sit through films 17-20 for this year's outing, but for reasons beyond my control I was not totally ready for it.
I started off with "Kilo Two Bravo", a BAFTA-nominated film about the true story of a group of British soldiers trapped in an abandoned mine field near the Kajaki Dam in Afghanistan. Michael Lerman, artistic director of the festival, said it was "10 times" more intense than the similar-ish "The Hurt Locker". That is no joke.
With the wrong step anyone could be blown up in this small piece of desert. Let me tell you, I was so pent up waiting for a bomb to go off at any second I wanted to leave the theater. "Kilo Two Bravo" is incredibly tense it was almost uncomfortable, but how could you look away!? You needed to know what was going to happen to this group of (mostly) GQ-wannabe guys. The ending was incredibly hooky, full of title cards on the real soldiers and a horribly Hallmark-esque song playing underneath it. There was a few shots before the end that would have been the most perfect ending, but it went for cheese factor instead.
After self-diagnosing myself with PTSD from "Kilo Two Bravo", I enjoyed a great train ride on the Empire Builder courtesy of the documentary "In Transit".
