Film Review: A History of Violence
David Cronenberg's latest masochistic thriller tells the story of an idyllic small town torn apart by the violence both outside and inside of an all-American family.
Tom Stall (Viggo Mortensen) who appears to be living the American Dream unexpectedly meets two gun-totting thugs who are driving across the country on a killing spree. After a frenetic shoot-out at his diner, Tom becomes an overnight hero, only to see his past catch up with him. Violence ensues tragically, leading to killing that only begets more killing.
Unflinching in its depiction of violence, the film shows head-on the fatal results of gun wounds in sensational scenes of bloodshed and gore. Yet, much of the film languids in a placid pace, much paralleling the slow internal collapse of Tom's superficially ideal American household.
Although the mobster narrative drives the storyline, the violence clearly extends beyond that of organized crime. It is also about the violence of the family, the violence of adolescence and bullying, the violence of sex and lies, and the violence that one inflicts onto himself. Cronenberg suggests that there is violence in everyone, and in this tale of a history of violence, it is a violent America where Americans terrorize one another.
In a pivotal scene, Tom's wife, Edie (an incredibly real Maria Bello) turns from the tragic sufferer to become an accomplice by lying to the town sheriff of his husband's past. (It is a chameleon act that also brings to mind Laura Linney's evil transformation as Hamlet's Getrude in Mystic River.) The couple then continues the emotional battery by engaging in violent sex on the staircase - every gyration on the staircase causing a scar on her back, as their marriage goes downhill with every descend down the stairs.
The film is a departure from Cronenberg's previous body of work which can only be described as eccentric and weird. Here, the Canadian director is also at his most invisible, letting his terrific cast take the lead by pushing the story into a whirlpool that never seems to be able to come to a stop.
This is a great movie that invigorates the familiar narrative of an externalized terror intruding into the safe and protected confines of home and town. Films like In the Bedroom and more poignantly in the post-9/11 period, Mystic River, 21 grams and Dogville depict the insanity of acts of terrorism and counter-terrorism and how they escalate into an endless cycle of violence.
In A History of Violence, the terror is not so much as that coming from the outside. The external threat as characterized by the mobsters are portrayed as darkly comedic and inconsequential as compared to the larger threat of the paternal and familial variety. Although the ending of the film hints at a sense of forgiveness and closure, after one and a half hours in the theatre, the audience is well aware that the exacted toll from the violence is unlikely to be forgotten.
Tom Stall (Viggo Mortensen) who appears to be living the American Dream unexpectedly meets two gun-totting thugs who are driving across the country on a killing spree. After a frenetic shoot-out at his diner, Tom becomes an overnight hero, only to see his past catch up with him. Violence ensues tragically, leading to killing that only begets more killing.
Unflinching in its depiction of violence, the film shows head-on the fatal results of gun wounds in sensational scenes of bloodshed and gore. Yet, much of the film languids in a placid pace, much paralleling the slow internal collapse of Tom's superficially ideal American household.
Although the mobster narrative drives the storyline, the violence clearly extends beyond that of organized crime. It is also about the violence of the family, the violence of adolescence and bullying, the violence of sex and lies, and the violence that one inflicts onto himself. Cronenberg suggests that there is violence in everyone, and in this tale of a history of violence, it is a violent America where Americans terrorize one another.
In a pivotal scene, Tom's wife, Edie (an incredibly real Maria Bello) turns from the tragic sufferer to become an accomplice by lying to the town sheriff of his husband's past. (It is a chameleon act that also brings to mind Laura Linney's evil transformation as Hamlet's Getrude in Mystic River.) The couple then continues the emotional battery by engaging in violent sex on the staircase - every gyration on the staircase causing a scar on her back, as their marriage goes downhill with every descend down the stairs.
The film is a departure from Cronenberg's previous body of work which can only be described as eccentric and weird. Here, the Canadian director is also at his most invisible, letting his terrific cast take the lead by pushing the story into a whirlpool that never seems to be able to come to a stop.
This is a great movie that invigorates the familiar narrative of an externalized terror intruding into the safe and protected confines of home and town. Films like In the Bedroom and more poignantly in the post-9/11 period, Mystic River, 21 grams and Dogville depict the insanity of acts of terrorism and counter-terrorism and how they escalate into an endless cycle of violence.
In A History of Violence, the terror is not so much as that coming from the outside. The external threat as characterized by the mobsters are portrayed as darkly comedic and inconsequential as compared to the larger threat of the paternal and familial variety. Although the ending of the film hints at a sense of forgiveness and closure, after one and a half hours in the theatre, the audience is well aware that the exacted toll from the violence is unlikely to be forgotten.
posted by moebius @ 9:55 AM
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