Change Your Image
streethassle
Reviews
Life During Wartime (1997)
great
Loved it. Someone said the mark of a great mind is the capacity to hold two contradictory ideas in mind at the same time. It seems easiest for modern filmmakers to create a vision of humanity that is cynical/chilling or impossibly naive. I believe this film shares with Atom Egoyan's films, Milos Forman's late work, Sofia Coppola's Virgin Suicides and others, an essentially gentle but unclouded gentle view of humanity. From that, all things are possible: good satire, worthwhile commentary on the human condition, truly sexy scenes, all of which this film has. Consider the sex scene, once shocking, now a mainstay. When a film becomes trapped in either cynicism/dark brooding on one hand, or impossible romantic naivete on the other, it can no longer do anything but turn up the heat on accepted conventions. This film is not trapped in any such way. (See the scene in the kitchen when young Howard walks into the kitchen.)