CAUTION :Please Do not to see this film or read this review if you want to be entertained.This dark and unsettling film requires a courageous and intelligent viewer with a thick skin. There is nothing the least bit "entertaining" about this film. Only if you believe that cinema has the potential to be an art form, and that one of the things that art should do is tell the truth, then you must see it.It may well be the most devastating story ever committed to celluloid .
Plot Overview :
Adapted by Alexander Stuart from his own novel, the film centers on a family that has just moved from London to the wind-swept English seaside during winter. The relative isolation soon reveals an ongoing incestuous relationship between the working-class father and his 17-year-old-daughter. The middle-class mother has just given birth to their third child and desperately avoids knowing the truth, leaving the 16 year old younger brother, with the horrific responsibility of exposing the family secret.
Review :
The name of the film conjures up images of wartime carnage — bullet-ridden bodies and more blood than can be measured splashed over the battlefield. But rather than that,the title refers to
a more intimate battle, of emotions and hurtful truths amongst an ordinary, everyday family.The War Zone tackles a topic that many will doubtless find distasteful, even within the confines of fictional drama. Incest (and the resulting child abuse) is hardly the stuff box-office dreams are made of. The subject of incest is so often misused in films; many filmmakers feel the need to get preachy or overly sentimental, either showing too little while using other such techniques as manipulative musical scores to get an emotional response, or they show too much and it becomes gratuitous. Though films such as Chinatown, The Sweet Hereafter etc. suggest or mention incest, it is in the background – a seed which has borne pain and anger. But in this film,the father's sickness pervades every frame, at first unconsciously, and later graphically. But It is to the director's credit that the movie is neither exploitative nor so intent on realism that it cannot distance itself from its subject.
Incest can be, and frequently is, a silent monster that quietly devastates afflicted families. Many times this type of abuse gets passed down from parent to child. The cycle is difficult to break. In the film ,Tom ,the younger brother's world begins its descent into nightmare when he is arriving home one day and something catches his eye through the fogged bathroom window. Tom finally pulls himself away from the window, and rather than cutting to a shot revealing what he has just seen, we stay with Tom as he disconcertingly drops his grocery bag, a gesture that carries more enormous power than any howl or sob. He realizes the triviality of his shopping errand in comparison to the world-rocking change in his family dynamic. He confronts his sister later, and she denies what he saw, telling him it was not what he thought it was. Since we are not privy to Tom's viewpoint in that crucial instant, we can only wonder if his mind is playing tricks on him.
Our doubts are erased eventually in a scene of unflinching brutality. Tom trails Jessie and Dad to a stone bunker that lurks prominently by a cliff over the shore. There, he videotapes Dad raping his sister Jessie against her will. This time the immobile camera provides no escape or distraction. The scene is so devastating that its image invades every subsequent scene and follows you out the theater. When Tom uncovers further evidence, such as photographs of Jessie and Dad naked together, one wonders how long he has been raping and molesting her. And how much does Mum know? When the newborn baby is suddenly in need of hospitalization, the implications become even more horrifying, and Tom is spurred to action.
Many people wonder why Tom didn't simply blow the whistle at his dad at that time. Also, many wonder why Jesse seems content to endure this abuse. Unless you have experienced sexual abuse as child, you cannot completely get into the mind of the child being abused. Blowing the whistle seems to be an obvious solution to the problem, but sexual abuse is not the only type of abuse present. Other less noticeable forms of abuse (i.e. emotional abuse), plays a role in how the abused deals with the matter at hand. Silence and complacency on the part of the abused is often the case. Some victims are unable to vocalize what is going on and then continue to bear the pain of the abuse.Also the film does not provide a perfect resolution to all the conflicts contrary to expectation of the audience.Unsettling questions remain even when the film has drawn to a close.
Why did the father start the relationship with his daughter?
Did the daughter at any stage enjoy it?
What was the brother's true feelings for his sister Jesse?
Drama arises out of conflict. Conflict arises between obstacles and personal motives. Resolution of conflict provides closure. Whether well-made or not, standard movies rely on personal motives, obstacles to them, the resultant drama and its resolution. We, as audience, are used to seeking these in movies either consciously or subconsciously.Here is a movie that goes beyond this standard premise. Even though the set up of motives ,desires,obstacles,conflict works in all our lives, often times we don't get concrete solutions. This is really because we don't clearly understand our/others' motives and desires.While the above questions posed by the viewers are extremely relevant those very questions trivialize the whole issue and are, in some level insensitive in nature. Those questions reduce Dad, Mum, Tom and Jessie from living human beings to fantasy stereotypes. While we subconsciously seek fantasy stereotypes even in our lives despite our best intentions, Director Tim Roth has smartly and superbly gone around them and presented living beings to us.
Proving to be yet another actor-turned director who is completely in tune with his cast and the script that they’re playing to, Tom Roth directs The War Zone with the sure hand of someone who’s spent a lifetime learning how to make movies - that this is his debut is nothing less than astonishing . It very much reminded me of the work of Michael Haneke who, ironically, Roth worked with in the equally tense US remake of Funny Games last year.Roth proves he's got what it takes as a director, and since it's been ten years since this film's release, I'm surprised he hasn't directed anything else.Cinematographer Eamus McGarvey, shooting in anamorphic Panavision and using every inch of the wide frame to full advantage, captures the images in The War Zone with a remarkable visual style, the almost muted colour palette lending a genuine sense of time and place, with absence of light often saying more than anything the viewer can clearly see.
High praise should be given to all four actors, especially the two newcomers, for bringing their bravery to the screen, and for making it emotionally true.Ray Winstone pushes his character past the typical child abuser we've seen so many times in dramas like this to make him a fully rounded, complex individual. Swinton is in the spotlight the least of the four main characters, but she once again proves she doesn't mind being put into the most unflattering light possible.But it is ,Freddie Cunliffe and Lara Belmont, who turn in the truly eye-opening performances. Both are brilliant, Belmont in particular turning in a brave, devastatingly believable performance for which enough superlatives cannot be found. The remarkable thing is that Cunliffe and Belmont both make their film debuts in The War Zone - and neither of them are professional actors.Just as a curiosity, the now famous Colin Farrell has a minor and short participation in the film.Conclusion :
Superbly directed and photographed, acted with insight and to perfection, and with a startling screenplay by the novel’s author, The War Zone is a reminder about just how good cinema can be when corporate and commercial concerns are removed from the film making process.This film will make you feel the pain it causes, and this is one only film I can ever remember that actually made me angry that so much of this thing goes on in our society. This film deserves your attention. It is, quite simply, a masterpiece.
Title : The War Zone (1999)
Dir. Tim Roth
Cast : Freddie Cunliffe ,Lara Belmont ,Ray Winstone, Tilda Swinton
Rated R for sexual content, some involving molestation, and for nudity
Country :UK
Language : English
DVD FEATURES :Feature length audio commentary with Director ,Behind the scenes ,Trailers cast and crew Bio.
Trailer Link :www.film.com/movies/the-war-zone/6131358
Torrent file name :The War Zone (1999).avi
