The look of [Let There Be Light] is unexceptional, as is the editing. The lighting is like that of every other wartime documentary; the editing is in shot and reverse shot for conversation, quick cross fades for time lapse, etc. The exceptional quality of the film is not cinematic: it's in the concern of the filmmaker and the nakedness of the subjects.

A group of combat soldiers arrives at a US army hospital suffering from various kinds of shell shock, as it used to be called…. Each one gets an interview with an army psychiatrist in which sodium amytol is injected or hypnosis is used to relieve stress and enable him to talk. Each one is "cured"—at least to the point where, six weeks later, they are all playing softball and then are discharged from the hospital. (p. 20)

The film is misleading. It says nothing about the...