Milestones

In the mid-1970s, propped in between 1960s civil rights and 1980s individualism, Robert Kramer and John Douglas interviewed dozens of American men and women who had rebelled against the establishment in the past decade. As founders of the Newsreel Collective, Kramer and Douglas had filmed in Vietnam in 1969, about society in North Vietnam that was living (and dying) under American fire. centers around the leftist activists in the States, but it's much more than a political statement. Through a combination of documentary and staged reenactments, it reveals the ideals of a generation that saw its vision crushed by reality. They had big dreams, but as the wrote in response to the film, if it had only rained for 20 days, Noah too would have had to leave his ark and make a life for himself in that same country. Such was the fate of these leftist activists. The situations are dramatized, but the ideas and experiences are real. For some, dreams have been replaced by narcissistic apathy, while others still live in communes and cling desperately to the remains of a utopia.