Director Wes Bencoster’s short horror film is a master stroke of a commentary on war and the inherent futility of the Vietnam war. Much like a horror film, “Hold Your Fire” begins with a gas masked soldier in a dusty land rooting through a landfill, and watches as a figure slowly creeps up on him. He fires shooting the figure in the head, and walks over to investigate the corpse. “Hold Your Fire” is based heavily on metaphor and symbolism paired with a thick irony that never spares a single second in displaying a world still affected by the Vietnam war, and how it still affects so many.
Bencoster films the short through a grimy and gritty lens that makes every moment feel disgusting and filled with bile. Bencoster cuts the explosion upon the soldier’s discovery to one of the many war cartoons of the golden age of cinema, and then to a nameless soldier that has become the very monster he viewed his enemy as. Bencoster give this individual a grotesque appearance with a perpetual glower of sadness and misery, all the while imprisoned in the very fatigues that brought him to war.
With subtle facial expressions from the performers, and very intricate editing with striking shots of the outside world, Wes Bencoster contrasts the depiction of the Vietnamese during war time, and the dignified human beings they really have been all along. We also gaze at the “war hero” reaping his rewards depicted through disgusting prosthetics. Director Wes Bencoster creates not only a brilliant arthouse short film, but one with a message that’s still ever more relevant today. Especially since we really haven’t learned anything from Vietnam.