I went to screening of this film at AFI a couple years ago – it was a screening to talk about the work of Harris Savides, the cinematographer who shot the film.
After the screening and the lights came up, Savides walked up to the stage and said, “That was a weird movie.”
lol
SPOILERS
It’s a fantastic film. It reminds me strongly of The Fountain. Both films have obvious genre elements to them, but these elements are only there to help support the exploration of grief. There is no answer to the question of whether the boy is reincarnated or not (in fact Glazer has said he deliberately included scenes that would invalidate both the possibility of the boy being a reincarnation and the possibility of him not being a reincarnation) because that question is not important: this mystery exists so that Glazer can explore ideas relating to grief, love, loss and how we come to justify the beliefs we hold. Kidman’s performance is spot on and the film is really damn moving.
A great, great film.
I thought it was awesome, but I would never recommend it to anyone. So much of it absolutely shouldn’t have worked but somehow did for me. It was either pure genius or a fluke… or both.
I remember it getting a pretty fair amount of criticism and negative attention back when it was released, mostly for the bath tub scene with the little boy.
It’s a very delicate film, if that makes sense. It could’ve been just completely ridiculous and laughable (which many critics thought it was) but I think it maintains just the right serious/eerie/mysterious tone.
And Nicole Kidman’s performance – wow. It reminds you why she became a movie star in the first place. Screw The Hours, this is the movie she should have won an Oscar for. That sequence at the orchestra is unforgettable.
Yeah, I was actually amazed how tame the “bath tub” scene was. I mean, THAT was controversial? Really??? We don’t even see any skin or contact between the two of them, then it’s over within seconds. Ridiculous.
So do we think the actual nature/motive of young Sean is crucial to the story? I’ve been struggling with this. In most cases and in most movies I’d say it’s unimportant, that it’s simply a catalyst for the story about Anna, but I feel in this case too many things change depending on what you think of this character. If he is indeed Sean reincarnate, this adds more layers and subtext to the film. Perhaps he has come back to mend wounds with Anna, to relieve himself of the guilt of his infidelity. He forgets about “the other woman,” perhaps partially because there was nothing about her in Anna’s love letters, perhaps partially because in this new life Sean was supposed to be more focused on the one he wronged, not be caught up with someone else again.
But then, of course, he meets this woman and almost instantly decides he couldn’t possibly be Sean, as he truly loves Anna. It seems to me at this point that him actually being Sean is important, as it changes some things and adds others. He now no longer believes to be Sean, but since he is the film becomes all the more tragic. Here, a reincarnated soul, young, racked with guilt himself, yet not knowing it, is tricked into believing he’s not who he really is. In turn, Anna never knew who Sean really was either. And neither do we.
The boy goes back to school and we see him during class photos. What do you do during class photos? You sit stiffly and put on a fake, cheesy smile. Fake. A facade. We see this juxtaposed with Anna’s wedding photos, initially posed, soon crumbling into despair. She feels she almost had Sean back. Some part of her still believes that was him. But now he’s gone for the second time, and she wonders if he was ever really there for her in the first place. The boy, on the other hand, believing his infatuation to be an odd spell, will go on without worry. Maybe that’s his rebirth, his being able to leave that life – that idea – behind. Anna, of course, cannot.
Jon
Finally got around to this film yesterday, and I quite liked it. It’s effectively eerie with a beautiful performance from Nicole Kidman, and the story suggests some very interesting psychological/metaphysical possibilities, ones that, while not fully explored by the film itself, get you really thinking about the concepts therein. And even if you don’t really care for the “reincarnation” stuff or find the film silly, the portrait of a woman in unshakable grief is given a pretty vivid, unsettling new twist. The ending in particular is a haunting triumph.
On the downside, lots of the film does feel silly, portentous, underdeveloped. Cameron Bright is a complete enigma, wooden and unreadable. I understand this might have been the point, but it just didn’t translate as effectively as I think it could have. Still, I can’t quite fathom the critical vitriol the film received upon release. For such an interesting, ambitious work, fully dismissing it just seems wrong – the preposterously overstated controversy aside (seriously, did nobody see “Murmur of the Heart?”).
Anyway… what are your thoughts on this weird little movie?