Crazy

Crazy is a film about violence in which the violence itself is not explicitly shown. The film focuses on the experiences of a number of Dutch U.N. soldiers in various conflict areas around the world, and their personal accounts bring the horrors in Korea, Cambodia, Lebanon and Bosnia to life. Heddy Honigmann spoke with the Blue Berets back home in the Netherlands, and uses their own photographs and home movies from the hotbeds of violence they were in. The vehicle of their recollections is the music they played at the time, which they will forever associate with their war memories. One of them used music to drown out his fear, while another created a musical space with Pergolesi’s “Stabat Mater” where she could be alone with her thoughts. With a mixture of bravura and emotion, a young man tells about the perilous rides he took through “bomb alley” in Bosnia, invariably accompanied by Guns N' Roses songs at full blast. Crazy demonstrates that the Netherlands has its own Vietnam veterans – men who took their war experiences back home and are struggling to cope with them. It's a film that makes us realize the madness of war, creates doubt about the usefulness of so-called peace missions and shows the power of music as a means to survive in extremely difficult situations. (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam)