Prior Viewings: 1
Like most movies about grief and loss, The Sweet Hereafter isn't always an especially easy watch. You can practically feel the pain of this shattered rural community through the screen. And yet, Atom Egoyan keeps everything relatively restrained, which not only provides a grim and chilly atmosphere that perfectly reflects its vast, wintery setting, but it also creates some compelling ambiguity from a character perspective.
Why are these victims responding in the way that they are? Similarly, is this lawyer genuinely interested in helping them, or is he just here to absolve himself of his own domestic faults? We never fully know, which I think speaks to the way humans try (and, understandably, fail) to make sense of tragedy. And this enigmatic circumstance is made all the hazier by a fractured structure and an unresolved ending, both of which really fit on a thematic level.
I won't pretend that this is the kind of movie I typically gravitate towards, and I think one or two of the subplots probably could've been cut (my vote goes to the sexual abuse scene, which feels like tragedy overkill to me), but the whole thing is so ominous and provocative that I ultimately find it impossible to look away.
Grade: A-
No comments:
Post a Comment