In War and the Soul, author Edward Tick, a clinical psychotherapist, writes: "In war, chaos overwhelms compassion, violence replaces cooperation, instinct replaces rationality, gut dominates mind. When drenched in these conditions, the soul is disfigured and can be lost for life. What is called soul loss is an extreme psychospiritual condition." Indigenous peoples and traditional societies recognized and treated soul loss as an authentic condition which affects not only the individual suffering from it but the whole community. Today, Iraq war veterans — like many of those who returned from the Vietnam war — suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. The hell they have been through does not end when they return home. Many of these soldiers cannot sleep or hold a job. In addition, they feel they have no center or reason to go on living.
The Dry Land tells the moving story of an Iraq vet and the suffering he goes through after returning home. Although it is a story that has been told before, it needs to be repeated until the American public wakes up to the terrible lingering effects of the wars they have backed and funded.
James (Ryan O'Nan) returns from the Iraq war with hopes of rebuilding his life. He is met at the airport by his loving wife Sara (America Ferrera) and his good friend Michael (Jason Ritter). Then there is a welcoming party for him attended by relatives, including his sister Susie (June Diane Raphael) and his father-in-law David (Benito Martinez) who later offers him a job at his meat-packing company. James's very sick mother (Melissa Leo) is glad to see him and his touching ministrations to her demonstrate that he has always been a sensitive caretaker. At home in his trailer, this troubled veteran desperately tries to get back into the normal swing of things but is unable to do so. He is sickened at the slaughterhouse when he sees a cow killed. He gets into a fight with a fellow who doesn't like him.
Worst of all, James has no capacity to be intimate with Sara. He nearly chokes her to death one night during a nightmare and has some very rough sex with her that eventually sends her back home to her parents. These PTSD-triggered actions catapult him on a quest to find out the truth about his blocked memory of a truck explosion with terrible consequences. When Raymond (Wilmer Valderrama) can't answer his questions, they drive to Walter Reed Hospital to see Henry (Diego Klattenhoff), a double amputee, who eventually tells James what he wants to know about the event he has erased from his mind.
Writer and director Ryan Piers Williams has created an intense drama around one Iraq war veteran who struggles valiantly with his PTSD. Knowing what happened on the violent day in the past that changed his life does not save James. He has to experience a different kind of healing which stems from love and surrender. It is the kind of healing that Edward Tick calls a healing of the damaged soul.
Special features include commentary with Ryan Piers Williams and America Ferrera; theatrical trailer; resources for care.
