Film

Let There Be Light

Name: Let There Be Light
Genre: Documentary, War
Released: 1946
Cast: Walter Huston

Shot in 1945 at an Army hospital, this is Huston at his most restrained: a fly-on-the-wall record of soldiers relearning to speak, walk and sleep after combat, treated with hypnosis, narcosynthesis and simple patience. No music, no sermon — just faces recovering in real time. Tender, clinical, quietly devastating; the Army buried it for 35 years because it worked too well.

TMDb rating

7.3

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An animated documentary in which a veteran interviews fellow soldiers to reconstruct memories his mind has blocked out — the same idea Huston's narcosynthesis scenes rest on, that talking can unlock buried trauma, rendered in a wholly different visual language.

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