In Reed Van Dyk’s Atonement, U.S. Marine Lou D’Alessandro (Boyd Holbrook) is haunted by memories of the accidental killing of civilians during his time in Iraq and has the unexpected opportunity to meet with Mariam (Hiam Abbass) and other surviving members of the Khachaturian family, when journalist Michael Reid (Kenneth Branagh) digs deeper to revisit a long-dormant story.
Awards Buzz had the chance to speak with Van Dyk, Abbass, and Holbrook about the questions that still remain for them after making this film. Holbrook shared that he felt a certain catharsis from reaching the emotional apex of the film:
“People ask the question, is it hard to shake this character off after you’re done shooting it? One of the last days of filming is this last scene in the film, and I think we expelled, our cup was so full that it just completely emptied all that out on the day that it’s almost gratifying and a release and a joyous happy feeling in terms of honoring the story of just how much it personally moved me and happily closed that door. I think I feel like we did everything we could.”
Van Dyk expressed the film’s relevance to continued conflict around the world:
“There are always still questions, and I think one of them for me is, and this is a longer conversation, when you face and when you really look at the suffering of people who have endured war, why do we keep making this mistake? Why do the people that we elect into positions of power continue to make these decisions? And that’s something that is present of mind.”
Abbass referenced her own life experience in a heartfelt reflection on the agonizing of war and killing:
“For someone that comes from a part of the world where all we knew is always wars and they’re still going on, the big question is, can I keep going with my mission of actor to defend all these victims and all these people who suffer so much, because, for me today, more than ever, it becomes a duty. It becomes really something that we have to help each other in order to keep going with these kind of movies. I’m not saying that we should all do war movies, but we have to interrogate the humanity always about all these mistakes, all these things that repeat themselves and that we just keep killing. We just keep really making people suffer. So my biggest question stays, since I was seven years old until today, is a big why.”
Watch the video above to hear additional reflections from their time working together on the film and the importance of telling these stories.
Atonement will release on October 2nd in select theaters and expands nationally on October 9th.
