Las Vegas Weekly

June 17, 2008 · 12:06 AM

Disturbing revelations in Memorial Day Q&A

By Sarah Feldberg

Photo: Courtesy of CineVegas

When one of the filmmakers behind Memorial Day described his film as a cross between Girls Gone Wild and the IMF (International Monetary Fund), I was necessarily curious.

“It starts in Ocean City, Maryland and ends in an international incident,” director Josh Fox offered as an explanation from behind dark-framed glasses. The flyer he’d just given me featured a quote from the New York Times deeming Fox an “adventurous impresario.” Though visibly nervous, he looked the part.

After seeing Memorial Day and listening to a fascinating conversation with director and cast following the screening, I understand why he was anxious.

The movie follows a set of young adults during a disturbingly reckless Memorial Day weekend celebration. They drink. They fight. The have public, violent sex. Suddenly we realize these horrifying people are actually American military personnel. The camera follows them back to Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq where things only get worse.

“It has to do with war and it has to do with losing your spectrum of morality,” Fox told the audience during the post screening Q&A. The film, he explained, was not meant to judge the particular soldiers who had perpetrated the acts, but rather to examine a culture in which such things are possible in the first place.

In one particularly demoralizing scene a woman is raped in a car while her friends watch and do nothing. It’s a hideous moment that feels impossibly cruel, but when people unaffiliated with the film drive by and see the action they only cheered the sex along. Their enthusiasm was all too genuine.

Despite the provocative filmmaking, for me the cast’s relationship to the movie was the most interesting part of Memorial Day. Although they didn’t condone their characters’ crimes, they did start to identify with their characters as human beings. Their mistakes went from unthinkable to unfortunate.

“I started to understand how that could get out of control,” actress Tess Mix said, comparing some of the prison scenes to more accepted fraternity hazing that happens every day on campuses across the country.

And in the midst of all the torture and pain, she and the other actors allowed that they even had fun.

“I have to admit I enjoyed doing the film,” actor Pedro Rafeal Rodriguez said guiltily, “but it’s a hard film to watch.”

It certainly was.

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