Wartime has always had a prominent place onscreen. Less prominent are films that tackle the aftermath of war. Movies like The Deer Hunter and The Best Years of Our Lives show the difficult transition back home after the battlefield. Even rarer is a film like Atonement, the feature debut for director Reed Van Dyk, which sees the returning soldier battling his own demons while coming face-to-face with people whose lives were devastated by his actions.
Based on a New Yorker article from Dexter Filkins, Atonement follows Second lieutenant Lou D’Alessandro (Lu Lobello, in real life) who, during a firefight at the beginning of the invasion of Iraq, shoots on cars crossing at an intersection, killing three men in the multigenerational Khachaturian family (Kachadoorian, in real life), Iraqi civilians trying to find shelter after an explosion destroyed parts of their home. Back in the United States, the Marine, who is suffering from PTSD and panic attacks, finds out that some of the surviving Khachaturians immigrated to the United States and reaches out to meet them, with the hope of finding forgiveness.
Van Dyk read Filkins’ original story while in his Los Angeles apartment. “I couldn’t stop crying,” he says, but adds, “I was in no position at that time to make a movie.” He later went to UCLA for film school and made several short films, one of which, DeKalb Elementary, received an Oscar nomination in 2018. He often thought about the soldier and the Kachadoorians, and “when I had anybody to support and help me figure out how to make a feature, I asked.”
