2/3/15: It’s Always the Quiet Ones

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Aloha Oe, alternate title, Carl Marznap, Carl Panzram, child abuse, childhood trauma, cinema, crime film, dark films, dark tourism, Dark Tourist, disturbing films, dramas, film reviews, films, flashbacks, Frank John Hughes, gang rape, grief tourism, Grief Tourist, hallucinations, Hawaiian songs, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, homophobia, horror, insanity, isolation, juvenile detention facility, juvenile offenders, loners, Lovely Molly, Melanie Griffith, mental breakdown, mental illness, Michael Cudlitz, misanthropes, misanthropic, mother-son relationships, Movies, murdered prostitutes, Nayo Wallace, Pruitt Taylor Vince, serial killers, Suri Krishnamma, Suzanne Quast, Taxi Driver, transgender, Travis Bickle, twist ending, unpleasant films, voice-over narration

In certain cases, I can predict exactly what I’ll be getting when I sit down with a previously unknown film. Sometimes the cover art will give clues or there’ll be some strategic stunt casting that sets off alarm bells (anything with a WWE personality, for example, is probably not going to be “a contender”). It might be a filmmaker that I’m familiar with, giving me a general idea of what lays ahead, or a screenwriter that’s intrigued me with other scripts. In some cases, certain films just project an aura of…well, let’s just call it “compromise” and be generous, shall we? These are the equivalent of the direct-to-video detritus that used to line store shelves back in the glory days of VHS: they’re still here, of course, although now they clog virtual racks rather than physical ones.

There are always those films, however, that end up defying, destroying and resetting expectations. Every once in a while, a film that might seem completely forgettable from the outside ends up surprising me and boring straight into my brain-pan. One of my favorite examples of this is Eduardo Sanchez’s Lovely Molly (2011), a film which seems so generic and bland from the outside that it feels like you’ve been dipped in lava once it reveals itself to be an absolutely unholy hell of an experience. Without a doubt, Lovely Molly is one of the single most unpleasant films I’ve ever watched: it’s also completely unforgettable and, quite possibly, one of the greatest unknown films of the 2000s. While Suri Krishnamma’s Dark Tourist (2012) isn’t quite the film that Lovely Molly is, it still managed to obliterate my low expectations, positioning itself as a sort of cross between Taxi Driver (1976) and Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986). When Dark Tourist is good, it’s absolutely riveting and, easily, one of the most grueling, unpleasant cinematic experiences I’ve had in months. This is definitely not a film that can (or will) appeal to everyone. If you’re ready to take a trip to some seriously damaged locales, however, Dark Tourist is saving you a seat on the bus.

Our protagonist is Jim (Michael Cudlitz), a misanthropic security guard who works the over-night shift at some sort of factory. Via his near constant voiceover, we learn a few handy things about our wannabe hero: he absolutely loves his solitude, eschewing human contact whenever possible; he’s obsessed with serial killers and their lives to the point where he makes yearly “pilgrimages” to check out their childhood homes, murder sites, etc.; he’s a virulent homophobe, racist and sexist, who decries Hollywood as “for the faggots,” bitches about his “Jew fucker” doctor and cheerfully describes his co-workers as “sluts, drug addicts, whore mongers and child molesters.” That Jim is able to be this terrible of a human being while still maintaining the outward semblance of normalcy is admirable, to say the least: we know how fucked up the guy is, since we’re getting the info straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. To everyone else, however, he just comes across as a standoffish, polite but cold guy with some weird hobbies. In other words, the epitome of “he seemed like such a nice, quiet guy.”

For this year’s trip, Jim has set his sights on the life and times of one Carl Marznap (based on real-life serial killer/monster Carl Panzram). Marznap was a killer/arsonist who was gang-raped in a juvenile facility and sought to take out his anger on the rest of the world, culminating in burning down a church full of people. Jim traces Marznap’s journey from his boyhood home to the (now abandoned) juvenile facility and the remains of the burned church, trying to get some sense of who the real Carl was. Along the way, Jim strikes up a tentative friendship with a lonely diner waitress (Melanie Griffith) and stays at a fleabag motel where the constant activities of the resident hooker, Iris (Suzanne Quast), start to provoke some rather “Travis Bickle-esque” feelings in him. Soon, Jim is having a hard time concentrating on his “vacation,” a situation which becomes even more difficult once he starts to see visions of an adult Marznap (Taylor Pruitt Vince). As Jim’s grasp on reality gets more and more precarious, he finds himself rocketing towards a revelation that is both impossibly sad and unrelentingly horrifying.

One of the greatest tricks that Krishnamma and screenwriter Frank John Hughes pull with Dark Tourist is making the misanthropic Jim such a thoroughly fascinating character. Chalk this up to a combination of good writing and a great performance by Cudlitz (who instantly reminded me of a younger Ron Perlman) but it’s a real coup: Jim should have been an absolutely miserable character to spend 80 minutes with but we still end up on his side (kind of/sort of) right up until the whole thing goes ass-over-tea kettle in a holocaust of violence. For a time, it’s easy to believe that Jim is just a severely damaged individual, ala Travis Bickle, who still has some deep-buried sense of morality, however perverted. When the worm turns, however, we’re smack-dab in Henry territory and it’s a pretty nasty place to be.

Craftwise, Dark Tourist isn’t exactly a home-run. The cinematography is often flat and kind of ugly, at its worst, and serviceable, at best. There’s an unfortunate lens-distortion effect used on the flashback scenes, which is rather cheesy, and the supporting performances range from good (Donna Ponterotto as Jim’s waitress mother) to serviceable (Pruitt Taylor Vince’s performance as Marznap is fine, if rather clichéd and perilously close to a cameo) to rather dreadful (I adore Melanie Griffith but the less said about her awkward, halting performance as Betsy, the better). There’s also an unfortunate tendency to hammer things home a bit hard: the part where Jim’s voice-over explicitly lays out his mental state is way too obvious, especially since the film had been so good at subtly laying out the same notion prior to that.

When the film follows through on its convictions, however, it comes perilously close to being a truly soul-shattering experience. The “twist” is a real gutpunch, which allows the previously foregone conclusion to pack much more emotional weight than it might otherwise have. The violence is sparse but genuinely disturbing when it comes (similar to Henry, if you think about it) and Krishnamma’s use of traditional Hawaiian instrumentals and songs such as “Aloha Oe” help keep the whole thing off kilter. For every familiar beat, Krishnamma throws in something so outside the box that it makes the whole production feel much fresher than it probably should have. This is, without a doubt, the very definition of something being far greater than the sum of its parts.

Ultimately, for as good as Dark Tourist ends up being (and the film is very, very good), it’s still the kind of movie that will have extremely limited appeal. Similar to Simon Rumley’s misery-epics The Living and the Dead (2006) and Red, White & Blue (2010), there is no sunshine to be found here whatsoever. Things begin on a grim note and degrade from there into abject and complete despair: it’s not spoiling a thing to say that nothing in Dark Tourist will end positively because there’s no way it could…Jim (and the world he inhabits) are way too fucked up for any sort of “fairy tale ending.” This is the kind of film that is best described as an “endurance match”: for as much as I respected Krishnamma and Hughes’ bleak vision, I would be extremely wary of anyone who said that they actually enjoyed it. Gentle readers, take note: if you’re not ready to descend to the depths of human depravity, you might want to book passage on an entirely different cruise.

5/31/14 (Part One): Suffer the Children

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abused children, Adrian Garcia Bogliano, Alan Martinez, auteur theory, Barbara Perrin Rivemar, child abuse, cinema, Cold Sweat, David Arturo Cabezud, demons, doppelgängers, Ernesto Herrera, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, foreign films, Francisco Barreiro, Giancarlo Ruiz, Here Comes the Devil, horror, horror films, killer children, Laura Caro, Mexican films, Michele Garcia, Movies, mysterious cave, Penumbra, possession, sexuality, Tijuana, writer-director

It should go without saying that one of the prime directives of parenthood is to protect your children, at all costs. I say “should,” of course, since the world rarely works in ideal ways. In truth, the winding path of adolescence can be just as hazardous and filled with hidden malice as the most dangerous military expedition. The “bad guys” don’t always look drastically different from the “good guys” and, frequently, can be two halves of the same person. Caught between a menagerie of predators, on one hand, and a cultural imperative to “grow up fast,” modern kids truly are stuck between two unpleasant extremes. Children should never have to navigate this labyrinth alone but, increasingly, it seems like they do. Even with the best of intentions, it may be difficult for parents to completely shield their children from all the evil that the world has to offer. When parents behave in less than ideal, selfish ways, however, it makes it all that much easier for the “bad guys” to creep out of the darkness. Spanish auteur Adrian Garcia Bogliano’s newest film, Here Comes the Devil (2013), quite ably explores the intersection between “parental sacrifice” and “selfish desire,” finding a shadow world where innocence is fleeting and evil can wear many different faces.

After a dynamic opening that introduces us to the diabolic forces at work, Here Comes the Devil settles down with our main protagonists: husband-and-wife Felix (Fracisco Barreiro) and Sol (Laura Caro) and their two young kids, Adolfo (Alan Martinez) and Sara (Michele Garcia). The family is on a vacation in Tijuana, a relaxing little day-trip that involves kicking back on sand dunes and exploring the nearby hills and their honeycombs of interconnecting caves. When young Sara gets her first period (a situation that causes Adolfo no small amount of distress: “Sara is bleeding! And I didn’t even touch her!”), Sol takes her to a public restroom to get cleaned up, assuring her that this is the furthest thing from a big deal: this happens to every woman and is nothing to be afraid of. Afterwards, Adolfo and Sara decide to go explore a hill that they noticed earlier, which gives Felix and Sol the opportunity for a little “alone time.” When a little fooling around turns into a hot and heavy session, however, the parents lose all track of time…and their own kids.

When Sara and Adolfo don’t return, Sol and Felix get righteously freaked out and frantically try to find them: Felix goes out to search the darkening landscape while Sol hangs around the nearby gas station, just in case they should return. As Sol waits, despondent, the gas station attendant (Enrique Saint-Martin) informs her that the local hills are cursed: no one goes up there because “creatures” live there who consider humans “nothing more than shells.” This kind of revelation doesn’t usually set worried parents’ minds to ease and, sure enough, Sol is beside herself: she blames the whole thing on her husband, who never wants to spend time with the family and had to be practically forced to take them on this excursion. If he was a better father, perhaps they would have gone to a better, “safer” place: if she was a better mother, she would have been watching her kids, instead of getting off. It’s a vicious back-and-forth that bleeds into the next morning, when the search is supposed to begin properly.

As they prepare to head out, however, Felix and Sol have a bit of a surprise: Sgt. Flores (Giancarlo Ruiz) is waiting for them, with Sara and Adolfo in tow. The kids look frightened but none the worse for wear. According to them, they got lost in a cave and couldn’t find their way out. Regardless of the reason, the family is happily reunited and go on to live happily ever after. Only, of course, they don’t. Cracks and fissures begin to appear in the kids’ story and their personalities seem different: Sol is certain that something is going on when Sara’s bloody panties from that day are nowhere to be found. Even stranger, Sara’s period appears to be over. Concerned, Sol takes her daughter to the doctor and gets the terrible diagnosis: while the doctor can’t be certain, there does appear to be signs of sexual trauma.

As Felix and Sol face the horrible implications, they launch their own “investigation” into the incident and come up with a possible suspect: Lucio (David Arturo Cabezud), a local weirdo who lives in a little trailer and has a predilection for stealing underwear. In a quest to “avenge” their children, Felix and Sol make a terrible decision, a decision that begins to rob them of their basic humanity. Even worse, however, is the nagging suspicion that they may have been wrong. As Sara and Adolfo begin to act odder and odder, culminating in a truly perverse, jaw-dropping incident with their unfortunate babysitter, Marcia (Barbara Perrin Rivemar), Felix and Sol are forced to confront the unthinkable: the innocent-looking kids who came back to them might not be so innocent, after all.

Writer-director Bogliano has become quite the go-to guy for Latin American horror films as of late, being responsible for three of the finest in recent memory: 36 Pasos (2006), Cold Sweat (2010) and Penumbra (2011), as well as one of the most effective, unsettling stories in the ABCs of Death (2012) anthology with “B is for Bigfoot.” Bogliano’s films tend to be hyper-sexual, gritty and very kinetic, flirting with a truly bracing combination of supernatural mythology, real-world horror and gallows humor. While Here Comes the Devil is nowhere near as purposefully “funny” as Penumbra (which often felt like a subtle satire of similar Satanic-themed films), there is plenty of humor to be found here, albeit mixed with elements that drain the laughs out like air from a leaking balloon. Bogliano is a masterful writer, capable of dropping hints, when necessary, but just as content to let his audience blunder their way through to the resolution. Unlike many modern horror filmmakers, Bogliano doesn’t hold hands: if the audience isn’t paying attention, he fully expects them to tap out and there’s nothing wrong with that. Truth be told, I wish more filmmakers dealt with the kind of intelligent, high-concept genre fare that Bogliano routinely does: Bogliano will have his English-language debut with Late Phases later this year, so let’s hope that he doesn’t “dumb down” his style for less discerning American audiences.

The things that work in the film work exceptionally well: the performances are all authentic, the cinematography (by frequent Bogliano collaborator Ernesto Herrera) is usually beautiful and the sound design is pretty great. Unlike many films that feature bickering parents (particularly horror films), the emotions and actions behind Felix and Sol seem to be more authentic than plot-driven. In addition, Here Comes the Devil is absolutely sodden with Gothic atmosphere, which works wonders in establishing a truly claustrophobic environment for the characters to get lost in. The film isn’t gore-drenched, by any definition of the term, but what’s there is unpleasant, in-your-face and pretty hard to forget: one Grand Guignol scene seemed to work on a “tiered” system which had me reacting, in ever escalating disgust, to each new development. By the time we get an up-close and personal meeting with someone’s trachea, the scene had pretty much cemented its place in the Hall of Fame. The effects work seems to be practical, for the most part, and is exceptionally realistic.

While Here Comes the Devil is an exceptionally well-made, powerful film, it’s certainly not without its faults. Despite being just shy of an hour and forty minutes long, the film still manages to seem at least 10 minutes too long. I can chalk this up to some repetition (necessary to explain plot points but rather cumbersome, all the same) but there are plenty of instances when scenes (and shots) seem to be held for just a little longer than necessary. This was also a bit of an issue in Penumbra, although the film’s (relatively) complex plot made this “stretching out” more welcome than intrusive. The biggest issue with the film (and one of my personal pet peeves, in general) is the rather obnoxious use of zooms to set-up foreshadowing. One of Bogliano’s favorite tricks in the film is to execute a sudden zoom (usually to eyes or items) as a manner of saying “Hey, pay attention to this!” We get zooms on wristwatches (to show that they’ve stopped), zooms on hand-holding (to highlight relationships), zooms into the landscape (to show us something), close-up zooms (to show us small details)…Here Comes the Devil is so zoom-happy that one could fashion a pretty vicious drinking game out of it: take a drink every time there’s a zoom and be ready to die by the half-way point.

I tend to hate the “revealing zoom” because it’s such an obvious filmmaking trick but there’s a bigger reason to dislike its overuse in Here Comes the Devil: the frequent zooms completely change the tone of the films, making it see-saw between somber atmosphere and giddy “action beats.” Used in moderation, I could get behind the technique (although I still find it highly unnecessary) but Bogliano (or Herrera, take your pick) absolutely beat it into the ground, rendering it meaningless. It may seem like an awfully silly quibble but keep this in mind: the obnoxious zooming turned this from an “excellent” film, in my book, to a “very good” one, which is testament to exactly how intrusive it is.

Nonetheless, the high points in Here Comes the Devil are very nearly enough to wash away the low ones. When the film is firing on all cylinders, it’s a lean, mean, angry, berserk little piece of insanity: there are no happy endings here whatsoever, nor are there any pulled punches. While the ultimate resolution may be a touch vague, there’s nothing open-ended about it: the only thing up for debate is just what, exactly, the family is dealing with. Bogliano has staked himself out a nice piece of land in the current horror real estate explosion, placing one foot firmly in the horrors of the “real world,” while the other tromps ground on the “supernatural” side of town. If he can make the transition to English-language films as surely as Del Toro did, our favorite over-extended director might just get a run for his money. Now, if we could only get these guys in the same room together…

 

5/28/14: Your Life, Minus the Bad Parts

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abused children, Brendan Fletcher, child abuse, childhood trauma, cinema, cutter, Dead Poets Society, film reviews, films, Final Cut, Genevieve Buechner, Jim Caviezel, memories, Michael St. John Smith, Mimi Kuzyk, Mira Sorvino, Movies, near future, Omar Naim, Robin Williams, sci-fi, science-fiction, Stephanie Romanov, Tak Fujimoto, tech-thriller, The Final Cut, thriller, Vincent Gale, Where the Buffalo Roam, writer-director

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could edit our own lives, go back through the “footage” of our years and remove all of the embarrassing, sad, shameful and hateful moments? In a perfect world, perhaps, we’d be able to remember just what we wanted: every golden sunset, ever moment of empowerment, every true moment of happiness, would stand in greater relief without all of the “other stuff” to clog it up. We would be able to remember our first kiss forever, while completely forgetting every racist, sexist, despicable or stupid thing we ever did. It sounds pretty great, on the outside, but it’s also pretty foolish. Indeed, it’s often the bad stuff, the moments that we’re most ashamed of, that help us to grow the most, to form our worldviews and personalities. It’s impossible to know love without knowing hate: good doesn’t exist without the presence of evil. We know all of this, of course, but we’re also humans and humans, by default, are pretty foolish creatures. We’re always looking for the perfect, idealized version of ourselves, sometimes to the deficit (or destruction) of those around us. It’s just what we do, really.

Omar Naim’s Final Cut (2004) examines not only this particularly human phenomena but also the tendency to whitewash (or tar, depending on the situation) someone after they’ve died. Dead people have a difficult time defending themselves, after all, so it’s no difficult thing to proclaim someone as either “hero” or “goat” after they’re unable to do anything about it. While it’s always disheartening to see how quickly people will rush to dig up dirt on a newly dead celebrity, it’s no less worrisome to see how willing some folks are to deify undeserving people. After all, if the memories of a person’s bad deeds can be erased from the public conscience, doesn’t that, in some twisted way, absolve them of their actions? It’s an intriguing idea and one that the film examines, at some length, with rather varying degrees of success.

Alan (Robin Williams) is a “cutter” in the near-future, a craftsman charged with editing the lifelong memories of recently deceased people into attractive, bite-sized pieces that are perfectly suitable for hi-tech memorial services/funerals called Rememories. Alan is one of the best cutters in the business, which means that he’s particularly adept at cutting out all of the nasty little bits that would tend to be upsetting in a public setting: for every life accomplishment, Alan cuts out a memory of savagely beating one’s spouse…for every moment of infidelity, child abuse and hatred that Alan removes, he leaves in the moments of charity, love and joy. Essentially, Alan gives families the “gift” that they think they want: an idealized, pain-free memory of their deceased love ones. It’s similar to history books that skip over the ugly parts, in favor of a more homogeneous, white-washed version of events: if we don’t see them, they couldn’t have happened.

While he may be good at his job, Alan doesn’t seem like a particularly happy person. For one thing, he’s constantly tortured by half-lucid, childhood memories of his friend, Louis, dying: from what he can remember, Alan was explicitly responsible for Louis’ death but he just can’t remember enough about the incident to know one way or the other. As such, he walks around bearing the burden of crushing guilt for an incident that may not have even happened…at least the way he remembers it. Talk about a key to a happy life!

Alan’s life is further complicated when his “boss,” Thelma (Mimi Kuzyk) presents him with a new assignment: edit a suitable Rememory for Charles Bannister (Michael St. John Smith), the recently deceased executive who was intrinsically tied to the implant technology that allows people’s memories to be recorded. Charles was an important person, perhaps one of the most important in the “new world,” but he was also a monster, as Alan discovers when he comes across the terrible footage of Bannister molesting his young daughter, Isabel (Genevieve Buechner). Isabel’s mother, Jennifer Bannister (Stephanie Romanov) seems to be well-aware of the abuse, since he’s careful to keep Alan away from Isabel: she doesn’t want her “muddying” the waters, as it were. Bannister was a very important person and they need to ensure that the public remembers him as a technological innovator rather than the monster who routinely raped his own daughter.

To further complicate matters, there’s a heavily anti-implant faction in society, a group that fights for a return to the days when memories were personal and couldn’t be manipulated by corporations. One of Alan’s former cutting peers, Fletcher (Jim Caviezel), is deeply embedded with the protesters and wants Alan to break the tenets of his profession and get him Bannister’s uncut footage: if the general public can see the truth, Bannister won’t be deified and his horrible actions will be dragged into the light of day. Alan protests, as dedicated to his job as anyone who truly believes in their work but cracks are forming in his smooth veneer. When Alan finds out a secret about himself, a secret which automatically sets him at odds with his own profession and fellow cutters, he must decided whether to do the right thing or to follow the oath he took, regardless of how unjust it may be.

The Final Cut, first and foremost, is a very serious, somber film: just a few minutes in, it reminded me explicitly of Gattaca (1997), another ultra-serious, portentous science-fiction film. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with a serious film, mind you, but The Final Cut ends up slingshoting past serious into a cinematic realm usually reserved for stuffy historical dramas or “big, important” pictures. Unfortunately, the film never becomes quite “big enough” to make these affectations seem anything more than pretentious. It’s kind of like getting Brian Eno to score a Roger Corman boobs-and-aliens-in-space epic: adding gravitas to a pulpy storyline doesn’t make the subject inherently weighty. Likewise, The Final Cut seems focused on big, intellectual issues yet the resolution still hinges on the kind of maudlin, sentimental “feelings” that the film (mostly) avoids for its running time.

The ending, on its own, ends up being a pretty massive problem, since it purports to morph the film into a completely different beast with the movie’s final 10 minutes: never the best place to “flip the script,” as it were, unless you’re going for a “twist ending.” The finale to The Final Cut is no twist: rather, it’s a non-ending that sort of shrugs its shoulders, leaving the audience to pull together any deeper meaning. Worse yet, the ending posits the highly insulting notion that everyone in the film knows what Alan wants more than he does. It’s the equivalent of spending twenty minutes trying to convince the ice cream man that you really do want vanilla and not strawberry before he hands you a double-scoop of strawberry, anyway.

Craftwise, The Final Cut has the exact same look/feel that I tend to associate with most “Dystopia-lite” films, although the presence of veteran cinematographer Tak Fujimoto definitely lends the proceedings some weight. Fujimoto, known for Where the Buffalo Roam (1980) and Silence of the Lambs (1992), among many, many, many others, doesn’t bring a ton of individuality to the film but there’s plenty of nice shots here, including some truly impressive overheads. Again, the whole thing tends to remind me rather overtly of Gattaca, but that could just be a by-product of the whole “independent, intelligent sci-fi” subgenre. The score, as a rule, is always ponderous and somber, as if we need constant reminding that this is a “serious” film with “big issues.” A lighter (or, at least, more subtle) approach might have been more effective but it is what it is.

Robin Williams, as befits his late-career “serious” roles, is completely subdued, almost to the point of blending into the background. It’s definitely not my favorite of his low-key performances but I’ll be honest: I’ll take a hundred “mediocre” performances like this to one of his obnoxiously manic “funny guy” personas. I’ve never been a fan of Williams when he gets truly wound-up and rewatching some of his more “classic” roles, such as Good Morning, Vietnam (1987) and Dead Poets Society (1989) showed me that he’s been guilty of this for some time. While Williams’ performance in The Final Cut is nowhere near as relevatory as his turns in One Hour Photo (2002), Insomnia (2002) or World’s Greatest Dad (2009), it’s still a nicely low-key performance that maintains a consistent pitch throughout the film. I’m not sure that Alan has much of an arc, to be honest, but it’s nice to get through a Williams’ film without getting “mugged” to death.

Aside from Williams, the rest of the cast ranges from capable to fairly anonymous. Mira Sorvino has a rather thankless role as Alan’s on-again/off-again girlfriend, Delila, and Caviezel ends up being less than convincing as Fletcher, the former philistine who’s had his eyes opened to the evils of modern technology. To be fair, I’m rarely, if ever, blown away by Caviezel, who seems to underact to the point of non-acting. That being said, Fletcher is a rather confounding character and I’m not sure that anyone could have made him distinctive.

While The Final Cut isn’t a bad film (although it has a very bad ending), it’s also not a particularly interesting film. Any of the plot’s intriguing concepts (how would you act if you knew that everything you did would be recorded for the rest of your life?) become mundane by sheer repetition (a fact not helped by the tedious aural flashbacks that remind us of things we may have missed) and the whole thing is too glum and joyless to be much fun. While it’s interesting to think of our lives as one big editing project (like with film editing, Alan separates the footage into various categories, although his categories have names like “Masturbation,” “Personal Hygiene,” “Youth,” and “School”), I can’t really see the concept having much interest to anyone who’s not well-versed with the Final Cut editing program. Ultimately, The Final Cut ends up being so similar to other films that you might begin to wonder if someone hasn’t removed your memory of seeing it before. You probably haven’t but you’re sure gonna think you have.

5/21/14: One Day, It Will Please Us to Remember Even This

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abuse, abused children, Alex Calloway, Best of 2013, Brie Larson, child abuse, cinema, completely unforgettable, depression, Destin Daniel Cretton, dysfunctional family, film reviews, films, Frantz Turner, friends, group homes, independent films, indie dramas, John Gallagher Jr., Kaitlyn Dever, Keith Stanfield, Kevin Hernandez, Movies, non-traditional families, Rami Malek, residential treatment facility, Short Term 12, snubbed at the Oscars, Stephanie Beatriz, unplanned pregnancies, writer-director, youth in trouble

Child abuse, whether physical, mental or emotional, is an insidious evil, a cancer that takes root in an individual and manifests itself for generations to come. There can be no greater horror for a defenseless young person than to be preyed upon and victimized by the very people that are supposed to protect them, those parents and guardians who function as wolves among the flock. When one’s trust and faith has been shattered in such a terrible, fundamental way, is it ever possible to fully trust another human being, much less an adult in a position of authority? What of those abused individuals who dedicate their lives to helping others in similar situations? When you have been so terribly fractured and marginalized yourself, what happens when someone else needs to rely on you? What if, in the end, you only have enough strength for one person: do you save yourself, as you’ve always done, or do you give everything to the other, losing yourself completely in the process?

Writer-director Destin Daniel Cretton’s Short Term 12 (based on his earlier short film) is an open wound, a raw nerve love-letter to those people who devote their lives to helping troubled youth, even when the victories seem slight and the struggles nearly impossible. It’s an amazing film, the kind of movie that builds in subtle ways until you’re almost flattened by the raw emotion on display. It’s a familiar story, this examination of screwed-kids trying to make sense of themselves and the terrifying world around them, but it’s a necessary story, the kind that we should keep watching until we finally get it. Most importantly, Short Term 12 is an honest, powerful film filled with the kind of scorched-earth performances that will resonate long after the final credits have rolled: it’s a gut-punch, in the best possible way, and completely unforgettable.

We begin with a bit of a regular occurrence in this particular group home: an escape attempt by the ridiculously energetic Sammy (Alex Calloway). As Sammy runs gleefully for the hills, he’s chased down by two of the counselors, Grace (Brie Larson) and Mason (John Gallagher Jr.). We then meet the other counselors, a wet-behind-the-ears newbie named Nate (Rami Malek) and Jessica (Stephanie Beatriz). These four, along with the head of the facility, Jack (Frantz Turner), are all that stands between their various charges and a very big, bad world.

We also meet the kids, with special attention paid to the withdrawn, surly Marcus (Keith Stanfield) and sarcastic trouble-maker Luis (Kevin Hernandez). Marcus, an aspiring rapper, has been physically abused for so long that he’s become completely nihilistic: when asked if he wants a party for his upcoming 18th birthday, he replies that he just wants to get his head shaved. Marcus has seen the bad side of life for so long that it’s all he knows: he trudges through his days with the weariness of someone four times his age. The scene where he demos his new song for Mason, spitting out spare, harsh lines while Mason keeps time with skeletal beats on a bongo-drum, is a show stopper. The scene is so painful, so blazingly honest, that it’s almost impossible to watch: it’s like a child asking for spelling advise on a suicide note.

Into this situation falls Jayden (Kaitlyn Dever), the troubled daughter of one of Jack’s best friends. Jack describes his friend as a good, attentive father but Grace has her doubts: after all, if he’s so great, why’s Jayden coming to stay with them? As promised, Jayden is surly, unpleasant, unfriendly and confrontational: she doesn’t do “short-term” relationships and she won’t be here long enough to matter, so who cares? Jayden is also a cutter, with the scars to prove it, and instigates a minor shit-storm when she becomes upset and locks herself in her room. For all intents and purposes, Jayden is already unreachable, a young lady so damaged by whatever has happened to her that she views herself as a lost cause: in other words, she reminds Grace of herself.

You see, Grace, like Mason (and possible Jessica and Nate, although we’re never told), is the product of a fractured childhood. In Grace’s case, it was an abusive father who’s spent the past 10 years in prison for terrible crimes against her. She’s buried herself in the good she does with the children but she’s a tortured, unhappy person, given to long periods of simply sitting in the shower, letting the steaming water beat on her head. She’s also pregnant with Mason’s baby: he’s delighted, seeing a chance to start the family that he never had. Grace, on the other hand, is a bit more conflicted. She still has a tendency in punch Mason in the face when they get intimate, after all, and there’s always the nagging notion that she, herself, is “damaged goods.” When she can’t “fix” herself, what right does she have to bring a child into the world?

As things with Marcus and Luis come to a head at the facility, Grace finds herself more and more attached to Jayden. She seems to feel that making a difference in this one instance, to this one person, will make a difference to everyone…to herself. Grace’s actions put her relationship with Mason in danger, as well as her job with the facility. One of the first rules, after all, is that you never chase the kids once they’ve left the property: once they’re off the grounds, they’re no longer the responsibility of the group or the individual counselors. Grace, of course, knows that’s a load of bullshit: when you honestly care, you’ll chase them right to hell and back. And so, Grace descends into Hell to bring back Jayden…and see if she can’t save herself, while she’s at it.

In all honesty, there’s very little (if anything) bad that I have to say about Short Term 12: it’s a miraculous film, the kind of movie that requires that you sit and process what you’ve seen after the credits roll. It’s a powerful film, sometimes surprisingly so: I wasn’t ready for the way that some scenes moved me, perhaps due to my own experiences, and there are certain scenes that are painfully cathartic. As a child, I grew up a short distance from a troubled youth group home, a truly nightmarish facility where the children were physically abused for years. The place was eventually shut down (perhaps because a town can only sit on a dirty secret for so long, no matter what the secret) but the damage would have been done long before that. I was close friends with many of the kids who lived at the home and I “recognized” them in the movie: shy, introverted youth, prone to explosive violence but just as likely to be impossibly sweet. I saw their scars, during gym class, and they looked a lot like the scars on the kids in Short Term 12. This movie felt utterly and completely real and honest to me, a few degrees removed from a documentary, in some instances.

The subject matter, alone, would make Short Term 12 a powerful film but that wouldn’t necessarily make it an amazing film. Any film about child abuse walks a perilous line: on the one hand, an overly-sentimental film can come across as mawkish, manipulative and contrived, even if the intentions are good; on the other hand, a film that traffics in overly fantastic ideas of retribution or revenge (something like Princess (2006) or Dark Touch (2013) comes to mind) tends to marginalize the very real suffering that abused children endure. Revenge-oriented child abuse films always strike me as being close cousins to rape-revenge films: the terrible reality of something like child abuse or rape is reframed as a plot device.

Short Term 12 is not a sentimental film, although it does have a tremendous amount of compassion for its characters. This is a film where the characters, particularly Grace and Marcus, are allowed to “act out,” to express their anger and pain in ways that they feel is appropriate, whether anyone else does or not. Short Term 12, in many ways, is about being able to own your pain, to make it about survival versus victimization. By the time the film has come around to its conclusion, no one is “fixed,” even if they are happier. Indeed, the phenomenal final scene tells us nothing if not that life will continue to be like this, full of pain and sorrow and rage and small pockets of joy, until the day we all cease drawing breath. There is no such thing as a “happy ending,” because the story is still being written until the day you die: there is only “one day at a time.”

At the center of the film, towering above all else from a great height, is the staggering performance of Brie Larson. I’ll be honest: I never really paid attention to her before, even though I vaguely recall her from The United States of Tara…I didn’t even remember that she was in Don Jon (2013) and I just saw that a few weeks ago. Her performance in Short Term 12, however, is nothing short of relevatory and is one of the finest performances I saw this year. If Kaitlyn Dever is less impressive as Jayden, it’s probably because much of her time is given over to being the stereotypically moody “goth” teen: her character development is more subtle and spread across a wider space. We spend the entire film with Larson, however, and we can see her growing even within the first five minutes of the film. I really can’t laud her performance enough: she’s subtle, conflicted, funny, sad, selfish, selfless and, above all, highly human. Grace is easily the focal point of the film and Larson is such an effortless talent that it was a pleasure to make the journey with her, even when the emotion became searingly honest and painful.

While there’s not a bad actor in the bunch (John Gallagher Jr’s Mason has to be one of my favorite characters in quite some time and his “pants shitting” story is a minor classic), special mention must be made of both Keith Stanfield, as Marcus, and Rami Malek, as Nate. Stanfield is an impossibly magnetic presence as the seriously messed-up Marcus, taking a role that could have played as “stereotypical tough guy softens up” and making it completely organic. He brings an offhanded sense of menace to some of his lines (and actions) that serve as a subtle but omnipresent reminder: these may be kids but they’re capable of some pretty adult things. Malek, by contrast, gets the rather thankless role of the clueless newbie and makes it something both endearing and suitably exasperated. If Mason and Grace represent the people who are “all-in” when helping troubled youth, then Nate is the person who probably represents how most people act/are: eager to do good but clumsy, nervous and laden with their own issues/expectations. Nate is a supremely nice guy but he’s ridiculously self-absorbed: in one key scene, as Jessica and Nate comfort Luis after Marcus hits him, Jessica asks if “he’s alright.” Nate immediately responds that he’s fine but shaken, blah blah blah until Jessica cuts him off with the cold reply that she was talking to Luis. Nate means well but he’s too tied up in the formal process, as many of us are, to actually make a connection with the kids. Grace and Mason follow the rules of the group home to the letter…until they don’t. With Nate, you get the idea that he would never bend the rules, regardless of the situation.

Ultimately, Short Term 12 is not only an exquisitely crafted, masterfully acted, intelligent and powerful film, but it’s also an important film…if I may say so, it’s a completely necessary film, especially in our day and age. There’s nothing “feel-good” about Short Term 12, although the ending will probably make your heart soar. There are no easy answers here, either: sometimes, love is all you need…sometimes, it’s just not enough. Sometimes, broken people can make themselves whole…or at least whole enough to function. Sometimes, they can’t. In the real world, there are no easy answers and previous few “happily ever afters”: there’s a reason those were called fairy tales, after all.

If you’ve ever known someone (or been someone) who’s gone through this, I would wager that Short Term 12 will completely knock you on your ass. In an era when filmmaking seems more enslaved to escapism than ever, it’s sometimes helpful to remember that there are other colors in the cinematic crayon box. There are times when Short Term 12 will make you feel very bad. There are times when it will put a smile on even the sourest face. There will be times when you curse humanity and times when you realize that, for better or worse, we’re all that we’ve got.

At the end of the day, it breaks my heart to think about how many real-life Marcuses and Jaydens there are out there. It gives me hope to realize, however, that the world is full of Graces, too.

2/3/14: Shouting Into the Snow (Oscar Bait, Part 5)

Tags

Academy Award Nominee, Academy Awards, Alexandra Rapaport, Annika Wedderkopp, Best Foreign Film nominee, child abuse, cinema, Danish films, Dogme 95, false accusations, film reviews, films, Franz Kafka, guilty until proven innocent, hunting, independent films, Jagten, Lars von Trier, lies, Lucas, Mads Mikkelsen, Movies, Susse Wold, The Hunt, Thomas Bo Larsen, Thomas Vinterberg, tragedies, witch-hunts

Journey back in time to last week…Monday, to be exact. On that particular day, my Oscar viewing continued with the first of the Best Foreign Language Film nominees that I’ve been able to see: Thomas Vinterberg’s The Hunt.

Imagine being accused of a crime that you know you didn’t commit. Regardless of how much you protest, how much evidence you amass in your favor, the tide of public opinion continues to turn against you. Former friends shun you or, worse, spit on you. Loved ones doubt you. You’re not even able to shop at the local grocery store, since they don’t even want your money. Everywhere you turn, there is nothing but obscenity, hatred and fear: you have become, truly, an island unto yourself. This Kafkaesque scenario would be terrifying enough under the best of circumstances. Now: imagine that you’re a beloved elementary school teacher and the crime you have been falsely accused of is child abuse. This bleak, terrifying and soul-crushing experience forms the crux of Vinterberg’s powerful, solemn The Hunt.

Lucas (the always amazing Mads Mikkelsen, never better) is a well-liked elementary school teacher still trying to put the pieces together after a particularly acrimonious divorce and custody battle. He is absolutely devoted to his students, the kind of teacher that makes Mr. Holland look like a raging bully. Lucas is best friends with seemingly every male in town, hanging around with best friend Theo (Thomas Bo Larsen) whenever possible. Lucas has just began to date one of his co-workers, Nadja (Alexandra Rapaport), and has finally received word that his son, Marcus (Lasse Fogelstrom), will be able to stay with him, signalling a thawing, of sorts, in the battle with his ex-wife. Lucas is adored by every student in the school, none more so than Theo’s angelic little daughter, Klara (Annika Wedderkopp).

Klara, unfortunately, is the definition of a troubled child. Her parent are constantly fighting, her older brothers have gotten into the disturbing habit of showing her internet porn and she’s looking for affection from whomever will pay attention to her. The object of her affection, unfortunately, becomes Lucas. When he admonishes the girl after she plants an illicit kiss on his lips, Klara becomes sullen and upset. Later on, she tells the school’s administrator Grethe (Susse Wold) that Lucas has exposed himself to her, confusing the porn that she has seen with reality. Grethe jumps on the story and, in an effort to move as quickly as possible, does little to no fact-checking. In no time at all, the entire town has turned against Lucas: he’s let go from his job, the local grocery store refuses to sell to him and his friends, led by Theo, have turned violently against him. No matter how much Lucas protests, no one will believe him. Even worse: the other students are now beginning to say that Lucas molested them, as well, even if their shared story prominently mentions a non-existent basement. It’s up to a small, dedicated group of relatives and friends to try and clear Lucas’ name but will they succeed? And will there be anything left of Lucas or his reputation if they do?

Foreign-film fans might recognize writer/director Vinterberg as one-half of the team responsible for bringing the concepts of Dogme 95 to the world at large. Along with famed agitator and all-around genius Lars von Trier, Vinterberg came up with Dogme 95 as a reaction against the spiraling budgets and endless special effects extravaganzas of films in the 1990s. The first “official” Dogme 95 film was actually Vinterberg’s The Celebration, which The Hunt resembles in many ways. There’s also quite a bit of von Trier’s dour influence to be found here, whether it be in the icy, sterile environments or the escalating piles of misery heaped onto the lead character. And make no mistake about it: there is plenty of misery to go around here.

Like von Trier, Vinterberg examines the many, many forces that conspire to utterly crush and destroy a person’s humanity and the capricious way in which luck and fate can make this possible. The entire source of Lucas’ downfall comes from one single lie, a lie that he had nothing to do with and did nothing to contribute to. This stands in sharp contrast to traditional notions of tragedy, where a character’s fatal flaw always contributes to their inevitable downfall. In this case, Lucas’ biggest sin seems to be that he genuinely likes and cares for the children. His caring is twisted into something ugly but it’s completely illusory: never once is the audience made to believe that Lucas is guilty in any way, shape or form. This fundamental understanding of his innocence, on behalf of the audience, stands in sharp contrast to his neighbor’s absolute belief in his guilt, sans any proof. As Theo says, he knows that his daughter would never lie, about anything, so Lucas has to be guilty, regardless of any proof.

It’s a maddening concept but one that’s been played out too many times in the media to be discounted as simply a fictional construct. Just as any claim of abuse must be thoroughly investigated, so, too, must that investigation be through, fair and clear-headed. The violent persecution of an individual based on nothing but innuendo and hearsay is, as the film makes abundantly clear, nothing short of a witchhunt (perhaps “the hunt” of the title, despite the prominence of deer-hunting in the story).

The Hunt is a sober, unrelenting and unflinching film, although there are just enough moments of levity and joy to make the surrounding darkness and misery hit that much harder. The film actually begins with its most joyous sequence, a bit where Lucas and his friends skinny-dip in a icy lake, only for Lucas to end up saving one of the others from drowning. It’s a great bit of shorthand that quickly and efficiently establishes the characters and their relationships. This scene stands in sharp contrast with the film’s emotional centerpiece, the Christmas Eve service.

In a film that contains many striking scenes and images, the Christmas Eve church service still manages to stand head-and-shoulders above the others. At the nadir of his experience and ostracized from everyone in the town, Lucas decides to make his stand at the church. The entire town is gathered there, bathed in the beautiful warm glow of lights, candles and holy righteousness. Lucas enters the church and makes his way to the very front, past every disapproving glare and silent reproach, past the downcast, baleful glances of Theo and his family. As he sings the hymn, we get a close-up of Mikkelsen’s face and the effect is like getting kicked repeatedly in the stomach: we see the sorrow, the pain and the fear in Lucas’ eyes, feel them through the tears that stream down his face. We also, however, get a front-seat to the anger and hatred that have been simmering in him, emotions brought to a full-boil as Lucas finally directs his rage at the town, in general, and Theo, in particular. It’s an amazing scene, one of those moments that is simultaneously too painful to watch and too incredible to look away from. In any other hands, whether a different director or a lesser actor, the scene may have stumbled into the realm of the histrionic. As it is, however, it’s a perfectly brittle, lacerating moment, easily the equal of anything in von Trier’s films.

In many ways, The Hunt can be seen as a sort of Dogme 95 film, although the cinematography is genuinely gorgeous and much better than one usually sees in Dogme films. The raw emotions, simple structure and naturalistic lighting, however, are all elements that are readily associated with the Danish film movement. As with other Dogme films, the acting is of primary importance and The Hunt does not disappoint on that angle. Were there any justice, Mikkelsen would be a lock for whatever the Danish equivalent of the Best Actor award would be: he’s one of the only actors I’ve ever seen who can be simultaneously chilly and vulnerable. If Ingmar Bergman were still around, I’m pretty sure that Mikkelsen would be his muse. There’s one moment, where Lucas returns to the grocery store that turned him away, that serves as a minor bright spot of badassery in an otherwise grim landscape: after being beaten and humiliated by the butcher and several bag-boys earlier, Lucas returns to collect and pay for his groceries, mustering as much dignity as he can. When he’s confronted by the butcher, Lucas proceeds to lay the kind of righteous ass-whupping upon the guy that made me stand and pump my fist in the air: it’s a small victory but it’s his victory, dammit, and ours, by default.

In the end, The Hunt is an exceptional film, the kind of quiet, powerful art that sinks its claws into you and refuses to let go. There are no easy answers, here, and no handy villains. Despite the destructive power of her lie, it’s impossible to hate Klara: she’s just as much a victim as Lucas, ultimately. Likewise, we cannot hate Theo: he’s only making the same terrible decision that any parent in a similar situation would need to make. What, then, can we blame for Lucas’ turmoil? As vague as it may seem, Vinterberg seems to have a clear target in mind: if you want to blame anything for what happened to Lucas, blame the misery of humanity. It’s a heart-breaking revelation but it’s the closest we’ll get to absolute truth in The Hunt.

 

 

1/28/14: Innocence Lost

Tags

Carrie, child abuse, child trauma, cinema, Dark Touch, Film, horror films, Irish films, killer children, Lovely Molly, Marina de Van, Missy Keating, Movies, Niamh, telekinesis, unpleasant

As someone who watches a lot of films, particularly horror and exploitation fare, I occasionally find myself in the position of watching something that, in hindsight, I would rather not have seen. This can be due to several factors: visuals/scenes that are excruciatingly nauseating or graphic; themes/plot elements that are genuinely disturbing (I’m thinking more child and animal abuse than alien abduction or masked slashers); constant and never-ending misery, etc. Over the years, I’ve seen a few films (Salo, Cannibal Holocaust, Lovely Molly, Nekromantik, Irreversible, Henry) that I’ll never quite forget but will never actively think about for fear that details of each pop fresh into my skull (which they just did as I typed out this sentence). Unfortunately, I inadvertently added to this list with my recent viewing of Marina’s de Van’s unrelentingly disturbing Dark Touch.

On the outside, Dark Touch doesn’t seem particularly disturbing but the devil is definitely in the details with this one. The film details the struggles of Niamh, an 11-year-old irreparably scarred and twisted by abuse. Her mother and father have just been massacred in what the police in her small Irish town are calling a brutal home invasion. When Niamh goes to stay with Nat and Lucas, kindly friends of her deceased parents, it seems that she may just have a chance at happiness. Alas, the seeds of abuse can be planted deeply and the weeds they produce can choke and kill any happiness. Niamh already knows this and, soon, Nat, Lucas, their two small children and the entire town will learn this, as well.

In many, many years of watching films, I’ve rarely seen a film as fundamentally unpleasant as Dark Touch. For one thing, the film is unrelenting grim and gray, from the first frame to the last frame. There is absolutely no humor, levity or happiness to be found anywhere within the film’s 90 minutes. This does, of course, befit a film that focuses on the horrible aftermath of physical and sexual child abuse. Imagine if, however, the entirety of Requiem for a Dream consisted of the scene with the arm abscesses. There is misery and then there is misery: Dark Touch manages to stake out a new place at the head of the pack.

It’s no secret or spoiler to note that Niamh is an abused child and that her parents are the abusers: we’re given this information within the first 15 minutes of the film. The only mystery, ultimately , ends up being just how far Niamh will be stretched before she breaks. In many ways, Dark Touch is like a pitch-black, pre-teen version of Carrie, with abuse subbed for the oppressive religious angle of King’s classic. There was never much doubt in my mind as to who, exactly, was causing the mysterious deaths (if you’ve seen at least two poltergeist/moody kid horror films in your life, this should come as no surprise whatsoever), although I’m not sure that the film ever posits itself as a genuine mystery, so this is probably a moot point.

As mentioned, the film is exceedingly grim and unpleasant throughout its runtime. The final 20 minutes, however, manages to out-do the entire rest of the film in terms of sheer squeamishness/unpleasantness/potential to scar. Without giving any actual details away, let’s just say that Niamh and two other abused kids adopt the personas of their abusers and proceed to inflict these abuses upon innocent people. This sequence, to be honest, is so sickening, so revoltingly raw and terrible, that it becomes impossible to look away. It truly is like looking all the way to the bottom of Nietzsche’s abyss and seeing a reflective surface. Suffice to say that I hope to never, in this life or any others afterwards, see its like again.

Content and tone aside, Dark Touch, from a filmmaking perspective, is an exceptionally well-made film. The visuals are consistently stunning and moody, if constantly dark but the sound design is a true thing of beauty. Dark Touch is one of the few modern horror films that understand how truly important a good sound design can be to the overall impact of a film. The movie is loaded with great examples of the design but my favorite comes from the creepy scene where Niamh wanders the streets of her town at night, whistling an eerie tune. As she whistles, the sound becomes modulated and distorted, eventually becoming part of the soundtrack, by which time the whistle has been something altogether different and alien. It’s a genius technique, one that is employed at a few other key points in the film. The soundtrack has a tendency to favor dissonant, ringing tones and high, wavering sounds, at times coming across as some nightmarish collision of Philip Glass and Aphex Twin.

From a horror perspective, the violence in the film is fairly hardcore: imagine the poltergeist activity (moving tables, slamming doors) of most “haunting” films taken to a completely Grand Guignol level. People are ripped apart, bodies are torn, tender extremities are pierced, faces are pulverized: the gore scenes are so violent, especially when juxtaposed against the slower, moodier atmosphere of the rest of the film, that they almost come across as parody or satire. Imagine if the kill scenes from a Final Destination film were welded onto a dark indie chiller and you have a basic idea. Across the board, however, the effects work is exceptional and seems to rely on plenty of practical effects, which is always a nice touch.

The acting, unfortunately, tends to be a bit hit-and-miss. Missy Keating, as young Niamh, is a revelation, an actress so perfectly suited to the role that it doesn’t really seem like an acting job. She’s one of the most impressive child actors I’ve seen in years and I really hope she gets a chance to do something other than be miserable for an hour and a half. The adults, particularly Nat and Lucas (Marcella Plunkett and Padraic Delaney, respectively) have a habit of being too over-the-top and frantic, traits which make them seem less capable than the children (which, come to think of it, may be the film’s intent). The script, likewise, can be clunky and overly expository: Lucas, in particular, gets saddled with so many leaden lines that his character can seem more like a plot-construct than an actual human being.

At the end of the day, however, one’s acceptance and enjoyment (if you could call it that) of Dark Touch will hinge entirely upon the child abuse angle, in the same way that appreciation for something like Ms. 45 or I Spit on Your Grave hinges entirely on the rape-revenge subgenre. If you are unable to view cinematic depictions of child abuse (the abuse is very obvious and open, although the film is careful to only show the abuse being perpetrated on adults, for the most part, as opposed to the intended child victims), this is absolutely not something you will be able to sit through. The message behind the film is decidedly non-exploitative and important: the evils of child abuse continue to propagate and spread, long after the initial abuse is but a memory. After watching the film, however, I really did only have one thought: I’m glad that I’ll never have to watch this again.