Alex Sutton is a man born of combat. He gets a childlike thrill at the hatching of a baby chick. He can also break its neck if its at risk to infect the flock. He’s a soldier returned from war but with a war always raging in his mind. He can build a chicken coop to fend off predators but needs a pharmaceutical barrier to protect him from trauma and social distress. The documentary Farmer/Veteran has this duality always in its foreground. It’s a brutal and beautiful portrait of a dismantled yet striving hero.
Co-directors Alix Blair and Jeremy Lange travelled to the North Carolinian woods to follow Alex and his fiancé Jessica as they farm livestock and build a life together. They returned home with a stunning psychological masterpiece that deftly deconstructs the myth of the “perfect soldier.”
Veteran farming initiatives have been established all over rural agricultural areas in the US to help soldiers gain full or part-time employment or to give vocational purpose to those who have disabilities. The goal is to place these veterans in a sustainable living situation while also strengthening the infrastructure of America’s agricultural sector. Could there be a vocation anymore fitting for the soldier, a religious icon of American bravery and heroism? After all, it’s the farmers and the soldiers who built this nation.
The weight of myth hangs heavy on Alex. He’s a man who suffers from extreme depression and PTSD. When he shows the camera his veritable buffet of medication, the bottles invade the frame and surround Alex like a fortress. The orange-translucent bottles dotted by multi-colored capsules stave off the gaze of the American proselyte. Blair and Lange capture his distraught, war-ridden body with compassion and wonder. His eyes hang heavy at the corners. His upper-body slouches toward the ground. (I couldn’t help but think of The Master‘s Freddie Quell.) War and duty cursed him to the ground; he now works it to find peace.
While it’s a portrait of Alex, it’s also a deeply romantic film. There are no more endearing scenes than those between he and Jessica. She is a deeply committed woman who found not just someone to take care of in Alex but someone who could love her, even despite his disabilities. They work the farm in tandem, like visualizations of Adam and Eve come home to a ravaged Eden. Working the land is redemptive yet it’s also challenging. Adam, Eve, and Eden are no more.
Farmer/Veteran has a creational slant to its lens. There’s a dignifying intimacy in how the filmmakers portray their protagonist. Though, Alex definitely makes for a game subject. Despite his lot, he’s still a performer. Tactical weaponry is whipped out and shot near the camera often. A big display – which turns harrowing – is made of opening his medical records for the first time. Yet he never distracts the directors.
This documentary is masterfully shot and edited. It is always breaking down the myth and rebuilding a human in its place. One shot shows Alex slouched in a chair, exhausted from the day’s work – and from life. He’s not center in the frame but very near it. The film then cuts to a picture of Alex in Iraq. He sits uniformed in a chair that resembles a throne. The glory of the soldier juxtaposed with the brokenness of the man.
Toward the middle of the film, Alex shows the camera his tattoos. First, he shows the symbol that represents infantry on his right forearm. On his left, a Betty Page pinup in classic Army garb, which he claims he conceived before it got popular. Then he pulls up his right shirt sleeve to show a half-colored dragon with a faded outline. “I’ve always been a mythical person,” he says.
Myths are made to be reconstructed. Lives are made to be redeemed. Farmer/Veteran is a film which attempts both. The assured vision and care of its filmmakers is a testament to their love of craft and subject. Blair and Lange miraculously avoid issues-based rhetoric. This film is an ode to the American way. It’s a pastoral poem about a flawed yet beautiful land and its inhabitants. It’s deeply psychological yet compassionately observational. It brings to light modern mental health issues amongst soldiers by not enraging but embedding. It’s an American masterpiece.