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| The Sweet Hereafter 4 of 10 |
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| Directed by Atom Egoyan Cinematography by Paul Sarossy Ian Holm Sarah Polley Tom McCamus Gabrielle Rose Alberta Watson Maury Chaykin Stephanie Morgenstern Bruce Greenwood |
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| My wife and I decided to watch this film because it was included on a list of 25 or so �Films That Catholic Families Must Watch.� But I really have no idea why it would be on such a list. Seems to me that it belongs on a list of �Films That Show How To Deal With Tragedy In A Really Bad Way.� Not that everyone must be shown to cope heroically with the loss of their children. Far from it. That would be totally unrealistic. But this film is unrealistic in another way. The list compiler said that it shows how a town deals with its grief. But the film really focuses almost exclusively on the ugly, sordid lives of the people involved � both prior to and after the accident � and says almost nothing about their grief. In fact, the only people that seem to deal with the tragedy at all are the parents of an adopted child, and Bruce Greenwood�s character. But the two parents are dropped from the story (for no apparent reason), and Greenwood gets to play a man who does nothing right his entire life, except for this. So, I guess my biggest objection would be that it is totally without hope. No idea of redemption whatsoever. And so has no place on a list of movies for Catholic families. (The film�s Pied Piper references were the only truly interesting and original parts, in my mind. Now there could definitely have been something Christian there, but it was allowed to drop, along with pretty much everything else that might have been interesting.) Ian Holm was great. There was no doubt about that. His portrayal of the hardened lawyer, trying to make money off the tragedy of others while also trying to deal with his own tragedy, was spectacular. And Sarah Polley�s character was also very, very interesting. But it simply wasn�t enough. Technically, the film felt like it was filmed on no budget, although some of the effects certainly disproved that. But it dad a really grainy, �realistic� look to it, which I rarely enjoy. And this was no exception. The story, created by Atom Egoyan himself from a book by the same name, probably can�t be told in the amount of time he gives himself. He tries to get around that problem by running three separate time lines at once, but the result is simply confusing. The one thing that he does succeed in doing is portraying horrible things happening very, very quietly, which I think really increases their horror. It�s a risky effect, because it tends to come off either as effective, or as very callused. Here, it works; which simply serves to underscore his directing ability � and his waste of some really priceless possibilities. Finally, it was simply another story that deals exclusively with the degradation of human nature. It is what I have come to expect from Hollywood � and loathe. But it could have been so much more; although that would require someone with more imagination than Egoyan, I fear. "As you see her, two years later, I wonder if you realize something. I wonder if you understand that all of us -- Dolores, me, the children who survived, the children who didn't -- that we're all citizens of a different town now. A place with its own special rules and its own special laws. A town of people living in the sweet hereafter." |
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