(Welcome to The Daily Stream, an ongoing series in which the /Film team shares what they've been watching, why it's worth checking out, and where you can stream it.)
The following Daily Stream contains discussions of child sexual abuse and incest. Please proceed with caution.
The film: "The War Zone"
Where you can stream it: The Roku Channel, Tubi
The Pitch: For as long as the idea of "extreme cinema" has been a thing, there have been discussions over whether scenes of graphic sexual acts, especially non-consensual ones, are necessary to watch for either plot or audience enjoyment reasons. There certainly have been many instances where rape and assault scenes are not handled with the care they deserve, and these scenes are the ones that come up when people discuss the artistic importance of depicting such evils.
Then, there is "The War Zone." Released in 1999, the directorial debut of Tim Roth...
The following Daily Stream contains discussions of child sexual abuse and incest. Please proceed with caution.
The film: "The War Zone"
Where you can stream it: The Roku Channel, Tubi
The Pitch: For as long as the idea of "extreme cinema" has been a thing, there have been discussions over whether scenes of graphic sexual acts, especially non-consensual ones, are necessary to watch for either plot or audience enjoyment reasons. There certainly have been many instances where rape and assault scenes are not handled with the care they deserve, and these scenes are the ones that come up when people discuss the artistic importance of depicting such evils.
Then, there is "The War Zone." Released in 1999, the directorial debut of Tim Roth...
- 9/22/2022
- by Erin Brady
- Slash Film
Cannes Film Festival Critics Week
What is striking about Duane Hopkins' debut feature, "Better Things", is the number of negatives it accumulates. No camera movements. No musical soundtrack. No story. No humor. It's tempting to go on: no warmth, no hope, no love, no life. In their prospectus to the media, the filmmakers promise poetry and transcendence. These, like beauty, reside largely in the eye of the beholder.
The problem with "Better Things" is that, beyond the community of festival-goers and hard-core arthouse buffs, there are likely to be few beholders.
It's possible that this outline is too sweeping. There are at least two tracking shots, and on occasion the camera shifts to take in the head movements of the younger and livelier characters. From time to time the characters play recorded music, usually classical, on vinyl or cassette. There are some splendid wintry views of the northern English countryside.
Gail (Rachel McIntyre) is an adolescent who lives with her aged grandmother. Her story is interwoven with that of Rob Liam McIlfatrick), another adolescent whose girlfriend has just died of a drugs overdose. His solution to his problems is to shoot up, along with those of other local kids who either hang out, do drugs, occasionally attend school, engage in sex and exchange angry phone calls over perceived infidelities. Also in the mix are an elderly couple who appear to have reached a late-life crisis in their relations.
These social dramas are handled in a self-consciously arty manner with none of the commitment of a Ken Loach or the conviction of a Mike Leigh (both of whom would surely have used actors with regional accents). The movie's occasional philosophizing is trite, and the dialogue and its delivery are stilted, at times laughably so.
Production company: Third Films Ltd.
Cast: Rachel McIntyre, Liam McIlfatrick, Emma Cooper, Che Corr, Freddie Cunliffe, Kurt Taylor, Megan Palmer, Katie Samuels, Michael Socha.
Screenwriter/Director: Duane Hopkins.
Producers: Samm Haillay, Rachel Robey.
Photography: Lol Crawley.
Editor: Chris Barwell.
Production design: Jamie Leonard.
Sound design: Douglas MacDougall.
Sales: Celluloid Dreams.
No rating, 93 minutes.
What is striking about Duane Hopkins' debut feature, "Better Things", is the number of negatives it accumulates. No camera movements. No musical soundtrack. No story. No humor. It's tempting to go on: no warmth, no hope, no love, no life. In their prospectus to the media, the filmmakers promise poetry and transcendence. These, like beauty, reside largely in the eye of the beholder.
The problem with "Better Things" is that, beyond the community of festival-goers and hard-core arthouse buffs, there are likely to be few beholders.
It's possible that this outline is too sweeping. There are at least two tracking shots, and on occasion the camera shifts to take in the head movements of the younger and livelier characters. From time to time the characters play recorded music, usually classical, on vinyl or cassette. There are some splendid wintry views of the northern English countryside.
Gail (Rachel McIntyre) is an adolescent who lives with her aged grandmother. Her story is interwoven with that of Rob Liam McIlfatrick), another adolescent whose girlfriend has just died of a drugs overdose. His solution to his problems is to shoot up, along with those of other local kids who either hang out, do drugs, occasionally attend school, engage in sex and exchange angry phone calls over perceived infidelities. Also in the mix are an elderly couple who appear to have reached a late-life crisis in their relations.
These social dramas are handled in a self-consciously arty manner with none of the commitment of a Ken Loach or the conviction of a Mike Leigh (both of whom would surely have used actors with regional accents). The movie's occasional philosophizing is trite, and the dialogue and its delivery are stilted, at times laughably so.
Production company: Third Films Ltd.
Cast: Rachel McIntyre, Liam McIlfatrick, Emma Cooper, Che Corr, Freddie Cunliffe, Kurt Taylor, Megan Palmer, Katie Samuels, Michael Socha.
Screenwriter/Director: Duane Hopkins.
Producers: Samm Haillay, Rachel Robey.
Photography: Lol Crawley.
Editor: Chris Barwell.
Production design: Jamie Leonard.
Sound design: Douglas MacDougall.
Sales: Celluloid Dreams.
No rating, 93 minutes.
- 5/18/2008
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
PARK CITY, UTAH--Actors often take up the director's mantel, but few show any particular visual or storytelling skills. Such is not the case with Tim Roth, whose "The War Zone" was greeted with admiration and applause during its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. A wrenching story about family incest, this film may prove daunting for casual viewers, but its hard-forged eloquence should guarantee favorable reaction as an art house release.
The gruesome subject matter -- a father continually violates his teenage daughter during and after his wife's pregnancy -- is also emblemized by the cruel, natural setting of the story line.
The denuded and barren hills of Devon, just outside London, are a forbidding site, especially in the late fall when life has been sapped to a dull gray. It's a depressing landscape and an overall depressing situation for a hard-knocked family of four forced to more from the city to start anew amid the hardscrabble times of this rural burg.
Still, there is great expectation when mum (Tilda Swinton) gives birth to a girl, but even this blessed event is marred by a serious car accident on the way to the hospital. All family members, though bloodied and more than a bit unnerved, are ultimately OK, but the baby, it seems, suffers from some inner malady.
And things are even worse below the surface: Weary Ray (Ray Winstone) has brutally begun a cruel sexual relationship with 18-year-old Jessie (Lara Belmont), his vulnerable and troubled daughter. It's been going on a while and clearly is not something that is soon going to stop.
Inevitably, 15-year-old Tom (Freddie Cunliffe) stumbles upon his father and sister's rutting, and it decimates his kinship with his sister and severs fully his respect for his father. It's through Tom's ruptured viewpoint that screenwriter Alexander Stuart tells this tale.
There are no easy answers, no pat psychological explanations or causal justification in this painful story. Told with flinty precision and stark shadowings, "War Zone" is a searing look at the dark underbelly of what appears to be a bland societal situation.
The strength of "War Zone" is gathered from the edgy, never softened performances. As the loutish father, Winstone is a credible combination of sheer strength, kindliness and mendacity; it's a very human performance, and Winstone, to his credit, does not make the character cosmetically palatable. Cunliffe is terrific as the shattered son who confronts the heinous relationship, and Belmont is remarkable as the daughter who endures and, to an extent, encourages the coupling. She shows a woman confounded by crosscurrent of urges and insecurities. Swinton is well cast as the stolid wife and mother who has, essentially, been discarded by her husband.
Although it's not surprising that Roth has gathered marvelous performances from a talented cast, his visual powers are just as sure-footed. From the film's denuded, color-drenched look and thorny compositions, we feel the hardship and cutting-bone edge of the characters' lives. Cinematographer Seamus McGarvey has done a masterful job of framing and positioning his pictorial contribution. Similarly, Simon Boswell's sharp, assonant score clues us to the coldness and pain of this family "War Zone".
THE WAR ZONE
Credits: Producers: Sarah Radclyffe, Dixie Linder; Director: Tim Roth; Screenwriter: Alexander Stuart, based on his novel "The War Zone"; Executive producer: Eric Abraham; Director of photography: Seamus McGarvey; Production designer: Michael Carlin; Editor: Trevor Waite; Music: Simon Boswell; Costume designer: Mary Jane Reyner; Casting directors: Jina Jay, Sharon Howard-Field. Cast: Dad: Ray Winstone; Lucy: Kate Ashfield; Jessie: Lara Belmont; Tom: Freddie Cunliffe; Mum: Tilda Swinton. No MPAA rating. Color/stereo. Running time -- 98 minutes.
The gruesome subject matter -- a father continually violates his teenage daughter during and after his wife's pregnancy -- is also emblemized by the cruel, natural setting of the story line.
The denuded and barren hills of Devon, just outside London, are a forbidding site, especially in the late fall when life has been sapped to a dull gray. It's a depressing landscape and an overall depressing situation for a hard-knocked family of four forced to more from the city to start anew amid the hardscrabble times of this rural burg.
Still, there is great expectation when mum (Tilda Swinton) gives birth to a girl, but even this blessed event is marred by a serious car accident on the way to the hospital. All family members, though bloodied and more than a bit unnerved, are ultimately OK, but the baby, it seems, suffers from some inner malady.
And things are even worse below the surface: Weary Ray (Ray Winstone) has brutally begun a cruel sexual relationship with 18-year-old Jessie (Lara Belmont), his vulnerable and troubled daughter. It's been going on a while and clearly is not something that is soon going to stop.
Inevitably, 15-year-old Tom (Freddie Cunliffe) stumbles upon his father and sister's rutting, and it decimates his kinship with his sister and severs fully his respect for his father. It's through Tom's ruptured viewpoint that screenwriter Alexander Stuart tells this tale.
There are no easy answers, no pat psychological explanations or causal justification in this painful story. Told with flinty precision and stark shadowings, "War Zone" is a searing look at the dark underbelly of what appears to be a bland societal situation.
The strength of "War Zone" is gathered from the edgy, never softened performances. As the loutish father, Winstone is a credible combination of sheer strength, kindliness and mendacity; it's a very human performance, and Winstone, to his credit, does not make the character cosmetically palatable. Cunliffe is terrific as the shattered son who confronts the heinous relationship, and Belmont is remarkable as the daughter who endures and, to an extent, encourages the coupling. She shows a woman confounded by crosscurrent of urges and insecurities. Swinton is well cast as the stolid wife and mother who has, essentially, been discarded by her husband.
Although it's not surprising that Roth has gathered marvelous performances from a talented cast, his visual powers are just as sure-footed. From the film's denuded, color-drenched look and thorny compositions, we feel the hardship and cutting-bone edge of the characters' lives. Cinematographer Seamus McGarvey has done a masterful job of framing and positioning his pictorial contribution. Similarly, Simon Boswell's sharp, assonant score clues us to the coldness and pain of this family "War Zone".
THE WAR ZONE
Credits: Producers: Sarah Radclyffe, Dixie Linder; Director: Tim Roth; Screenwriter: Alexander Stuart, based on his novel "The War Zone"; Executive producer: Eric Abraham; Director of photography: Seamus McGarvey; Production designer: Michael Carlin; Editor: Trevor Waite; Music: Simon Boswell; Costume designer: Mary Jane Reyner; Casting directors: Jina Jay, Sharon Howard-Field. Cast: Dad: Ray Winstone; Lucy: Kate Ashfield; Jessie: Lara Belmont; Tom: Freddie Cunliffe; Mum: Tilda Swinton. No MPAA rating. Color/stereo. Running time -- 98 minutes.
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