After Fall, Winter

The film captured my interest one morning before work, as do all films set in Paris. I love film noir which this has some traits of, even though I can't relate to a down and out writer, who likes to be tied up and spanked, but it is counter-culture for sure. The female lead was much better in her portrayal of the dominatrix with a soft spot for a terminally ill child she cared for in a hospice? The plot was all over the place with the introduction of her mother who was mentally ill and beaten by her husband. However, this could have been a good movie if there was some shred of redemption or salvation at it's end. Terrible ending, with no satisfaction for having wasted 90 minutes of my life!

This is another take on "Romeo and Juliet". Prokofiev did it as ballet. Bernstein did it as musical. Zeffirelli and Luhrmann did it as movies. Tim van Dammen has filmed it as New Zealand rock opera.

Gypsy curse, very Shakespeare. Sharp combinations of alternating poignant tenderness and cynical exploitation, very Globe Theatre. Pixie-faced Lizzie Brochere with the huge eyes, very Juliet. So where are the warring families, the Montagues and Capulets? They are America and France, different ways of seeing life. They are the English language and the French language, different ways of expressing life. And they don't need to be anywhere out there, because they are inside us. From the moment of our conception, from the moment of our birth, we start accumulating individuality and baggage, individuality and baggage that are going to make love impossible - or at the very least, difficult. We are all star-cross'd lovers.

The problem with living more than four hundred years after Romeo first delivered the line: "If I profane with my unworthiest hand..." is how to make a doomed love credible, how to make us the audience care about the lovers and what they feel and what happens to them, and how to make it all look original, how to make it look archetypal but at the same time new. This film succeeds.

After Fall, Winter isn't a perfect movie, but the levels it goes to examine relationships at their most delicate hits home with anyone. Schaeffer has an amazing ability to create three dimensional characters who's flaws and problems feel real. To me that is the best of After Fall, Winter - the characters and world created. We don't have heroes with "first world problems," we have people we have seen in our everyday lives, right up there on the screen. The cast did an amazing job at accomplishing this task.

A very impressive character study, I would recommend this film to anyone sick of watching rich people fall in love in NYC and live happily ever after (which I hope is the majority of film lovers).

So honestly I thought this movie was refreshing. It is shocking to watch sometimes because of the violent sexual nature, but well worth it. The characters were well acted and believable. The story was well developed. I was never bored or disappointed. As a psychologist, I felt the character's issues were well written and accurately depicted throughout the film. I hate movies that are too "Hollywood" with the same old boring themes. This was a nice change from the typical romantic films. I don't know enough about S&M to judge the validity there, but I felt that this movie was very moving. It dives deep into human vulnerability. If you are looking for something different and interesting then I highly recommend it! It's a movie to watch when you're feeling melancholy.

Mix the raw emotion and psychological disturbance of Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club with a story of romance and love and this is what you get. A Romeo and Juliet for the minds who grew up reading A Clockwork Orange and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest while going through their educational careers being numbed by the despair of the writing and music of Nirvana, The Smashing Pumpkins, or Stabbing Westward, to I'm a Barbie Girl and Marilyn Manson. With unemployment and fiscal trouble running rampant and mass shootings on the television daily, this is a story of love that can speak to a generation who may never have known what the words "I love you" meant. This was truly an original film and I will be looking out for this writer in the future.