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valis2I just saw "Winter's Bones" and it was amazing.
And I never want to see it again.
The premise of the movie: Seventeen year old girl with catatonic mother and two younger siblings lives on property in the South. Her father (a meth lab cooker) has skipped out on bail, and he put up the property and the house as collateral, and if she doesn't find him and make him go to his court hearing, they will lose the property and their house.
The sins of the father, visited upon his family.
This movie was slow-paced, and the cinematography was quite bleak, sometimes resembling saturated neutral colors, sometimes washed out. The main character, Ree, walks through the Ozarks, determinedly knocking on several different doors in her quest. She's believable (though I thought a few of her lines were a bit...meh) and her plight is frightening.
There is a tangled web of family. Blood can be thick, or it can be thin. All around her is kin, but they are reluctant to help her, and eventually it comes out: the father was a snitch. She is warned off looking for him, but she can't not look for him; her property and her siblings and mother are depending on her.
The clothing and the jewelry and the surroundings seemed very realistic. Then again, I have never been anything other than a tourist in the Ozarks. There is music, too, and much of the movie is underscored by reverberations and very quiet musical cues. There are songs, too, and it's a fantastic counterpoint to the horror that is their daily lives.
So many things intrigued me. There is a sense of propriety, a strange fixation on manners, which is hard to to fathom. The first time Ree searches out Thump, a local patriarch, she is warned off very strongly by his wife, who gives her a cup of coffee to drink and then sends her on her way. The wife is angry, and menacing, but the coffee is hospitality for kin, and she must offer it. Later, when Ree comes back, the coffee is thrown in her face, and then Ree is struck in the face with the coffee cup for good measure. There are rules, and a code, and in one scene, the father's brother, a menacing but tragic figure, finds out that Ree has been roughed up. He asks one of the men if he hurt her, and you feel the electricity in the air, until Thump's wife stands up and says that no man laid a hand on her. It was her and her sisters. It defuses the situation, because Teardrop (the father's brother) won't hurt one of them.
The movie made me wonder about the stories behind the characters. Teardrop begins the movie in one way, and ends the movie as a deeper, more sympathetic character. Thump's wife makes me wonder about the social network of the women, who are drawn into the menfolk's business but are still kept separate. One's social standing depends upon the violence one can deal out. Teardrop is feared for that very reason.
Even the neighbor, who is married to their cousin, is fascinating in her own way. Big and strong, capable of dealing with just about anything in her own plain manner, I wonder what her social standing is. How she fits into the social network.
You get drawn into the movie. So much so that when a new character drives up in a new car, you immediately know that he isn't part of the community. Ree has to contend with difficulties at every turn, and her journey resembles a Greek tragedy in some ways.
The women, though, the women. Thump's women. They take Ree by boat to reckon with her father, and it's a scene that is--absolutely horrific but also vital to the heart of the movie. It offers her closure and hope for the future, and it's terrible and haunting, and it will stay with me for a very long time.
Great movie. I don't think I can ever watch it again, though.
And I never want to see it again.
The premise of the movie: Seventeen year old girl with catatonic mother and two younger siblings lives on property in the South. Her father (a meth lab cooker) has skipped out on bail, and he put up the property and the house as collateral, and if she doesn't find him and make him go to his court hearing, they will lose the property and their house.
The sins of the father, visited upon his family.
This movie was slow-paced, and the cinematography was quite bleak, sometimes resembling saturated neutral colors, sometimes washed out. The main character, Ree, walks through the Ozarks, determinedly knocking on several different doors in her quest. She's believable (though I thought a few of her lines were a bit...meh) and her plight is frightening.
There is a tangled web of family. Blood can be thick, or it can be thin. All around her is kin, but they are reluctant to help her, and eventually it comes out: the father was a snitch. She is warned off looking for him, but she can't not look for him; her property and her siblings and mother are depending on her.
The clothing and the jewelry and the surroundings seemed very realistic. Then again, I have never been anything other than a tourist in the Ozarks. There is music, too, and much of the movie is underscored by reverberations and very quiet musical cues. There are songs, too, and it's a fantastic counterpoint to the horror that is their daily lives.
So many things intrigued me. There is a sense of propriety, a strange fixation on manners, which is hard to to fathom. The first time Ree searches out Thump, a local patriarch, she is warned off very strongly by his wife, who gives her a cup of coffee to drink and then sends her on her way. The wife is angry, and menacing, but the coffee is hospitality for kin, and she must offer it. Later, when Ree comes back, the coffee is thrown in her face, and then Ree is struck in the face with the coffee cup for good measure. There are rules, and a code, and in one scene, the father's brother, a menacing but tragic figure, finds out that Ree has been roughed up. He asks one of the men if he hurt her, and you feel the electricity in the air, until Thump's wife stands up and says that no man laid a hand on her. It was her and her sisters. It defuses the situation, because Teardrop (the father's brother) won't hurt one of them.
The movie made me wonder about the stories behind the characters. Teardrop begins the movie in one way, and ends the movie as a deeper, more sympathetic character. Thump's wife makes me wonder about the social network of the women, who are drawn into the menfolk's business but are still kept separate. One's social standing depends upon the violence one can deal out. Teardrop is feared for that very reason.
Even the neighbor, who is married to their cousin, is fascinating in her own way. Big and strong, capable of dealing with just about anything in her own plain manner, I wonder what her social standing is. How she fits into the social network.
You get drawn into the movie. So much so that when a new character drives up in a new car, you immediately know that he isn't part of the community. Ree has to contend with difficulties at every turn, and her journey resembles a Greek tragedy in some ways.
The women, though, the women. Thump's women. They take Ree by boat to reckon with her father, and it's a scene that is--absolutely horrific but also vital to the heart of the movie. It offers her closure and hope for the future, and it's terrible and haunting, and it will stay with me for a very long time.
Great movie. I don't think I can ever watch it again, though.
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(no subject)
Date: 2010-07-01 05:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-07-01 09:16 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-07-01 09:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-07-01 09:43 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-07-04 12:07 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-07-04 05:20 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-07-04 09:25 pm (UTC)I haven't seen one like that in a long time. Oh, I've seen plenty I wouldn't want to see ever again, but not that kind of reason why...
*sighs* Misses old art-house theater.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-07-04 10:26 pm (UTC)But yeah, I kind of miss going to film classes. I never knew what was going to happen.