Ah, the old festival standby: a character study of what is eroding a middle-class family. I could tell you what is creating the erosion in this particular case, but part of the draw of the movie is that its questions and answers unfold as you watch. Although there aren’t many answers. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. I realized that the movie very discreetly changed the audience’s perceptions of the characters. Near the end you realize you have begun disliking the characters you had original sympathy for, and began to feel for the characters you earlier dismissed as callous and self-involved. Well done and understated. And, in theory, I appreciated the realism of the movie in that it doesn’t tie up the loose ends just because issues have been identified. On the other hand, the movie does just end. In the middle of a close up, it fades to black and credits roll. Leaving the resolution to the audience’s interpretation is one thing ... but I do prefer my movies to actually finish telling the story before asking me to decide for myself where the characters go from here.
1 comment:
I had a similar response when I caught this film at the Rhode Island International Film Festival. It was hard to determine who was in the car that had stopped for the child. I asked the filmmaker and he said it was the child's father.
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