Le sang du souvenir

Andrew Mondshein has obviously been paying attention. He has created an almost flawless bit of storytelling. From beginning to end its hauntingly beautiful and thought provoking. I compare it favorably to the best works of John Sayles, possibly the finest contemporary american filmmaker. Is it a coincidence that two Sayles veterans David Strathairn and Mary McConnell are excellent in this movie??

Its structure is complicated, but it is handled with a deft hand. Bernadette Kelly's editing is seamless. I recommend it very highly to anyone who enjoys a good whodunit or simply a wonderfully crafted entertainment. It certainly does not seem like a TV movie, even if it is a Canadian production, which, of course, are usually superior. Give it many stars.

I just happened to turn this on and was very pleasantly surprised. The actors were understated if anything and the plot was very interesting. I came up with several solutions before the ending revealed I was so very wrong. Even Mary McC's accent wasn't too bad. Recommend it highly.

Very good movie. I gave it a 9 instead of a 10 because, while it did everything it could with the material, there were times when the editing felt very clunky and commercial-timed (which is what a lot of t.v. movies do, when they have to wrap up something and then take it up in the next scene, after the commercial break). Great performances from everyone, lots of Americana and Deep South imagery, enough surprises to keep the plot interesting, and an even tone throughout. The sets were filmed beautifully, and I've never seen country houses with natural wood and stucco look so country-ish. In terms of plot, pacing, acting, composition, etc., there is only good things to say. In other words, watch this film!

This is one of my favorite types of movie: thoughtful, shy writer pieces together events from fifty years ago, exonerates an innocent man and discovers something important about himself in the process. The movie doesn't try to do too much, gives you enough information about the primary characters without leaving you wondering if there was more background in the book.

I've always liked David Straithairn and he gives an easy portrayal of the main character. Mary McDonnell is good as the unjustly convicted murderer's daughter though I could have done without the halting, "don't really care about anything" accent/tone. Definitely worth seeing if you're into the story-type movie.

I can see why some viewers might not get much out of this production. It is low budget, it is made for TV, it doesn't have a bankable performer, it doesn't have a car chase, not a shot is fired, nobody shouts at anyone else, there's very little blood and no violence, the courtroom scenes are there for exposition only and not drama, and we don't get to see Angelina Jolie nude.

What we have instead of a Hollywood blockbuster is a deliberately paced and complicated mystery that's sufficiently well done to deserve a good scrutiny on the part of people who make Hollywood blockbusters.

David Strathairn, a reliable actor, is a writer who returns to his home town to investigate a crime in which a man was executed for something he may or may not have done. The story emerges through the course of his investigation. Most of his informants are reluctant, if not downright hostile to his prying into this old affair. And the story really is complex, enough so that at times it is barely strong enough to carry the rest of this above-average flick. The crime, the subsequent trial, and related events come in snippets. Sometimes we don't know where a particular snippet fits and therefore why it's there in the first place. Stathairn's mother, we find out, was once tried for practicing medicine without a license in this rural benighted Alabama town. So what? He's supposed to be investigating a murder and here is his Mom on trial for performing magic tricks or something. A severe case of asthma seems to emerge out of nowhere to play an important part of the story. The ending pulls it all together, if you've managed to keep the characters and their motives straight, but it's rather a long haul.

But, especially considering the budget, the iconography could hardly be improved upon. The location looks right, whether it was filmed in Vancouver or not. (I suspect some of the interiors at least were shot in the studios in Wilmington, North Carolina.) In the flashbacks girls wear those ugly thick stocking that might have been common in Southern mountain communities forty years ago.

And for the most part the acting is far superior to what one might expect from such a venture. Man, these people have strong faces. Strathairn is no glamor boy, thank God. His shoulders slope down to nothingness, which is nice. And he doesn't miss a trick in his performance. Neither do most of the others, with the exception of a sheriff who comes across as a kind of mechanical stand in for the kind of human beings we can discern in the other characters. The elderly retired prosecutor, weeping with loss and guilt, never able to hold his own child, is a touching portrait rendered by a memorable actor. Mary McDonald is the kind of woman that every Hollywood sexpot should turn into if this were a good world. Her not-quite-pretty features are large and expressive. Her hair is a cowl of floppy deep blackish-red. And her voice -- what a voice! It is the soothing, understated voice of a concerned but somewhat distant shrink, with a bit of red-eye gravy in it. Her movements are smooth and languorous. She stretches luxuriantly, like an animal, without ever overdoing the sexuality she emanates. But she can turn up her instrument when the situation calls for it, from lento, say, to moderato, without ever screaming. (For an instructive contrast, it's interesting to watch "Witness for the Prosecution," probably a better film, in which the characters are engagingly hammy.)

The director handles all of these characters in their often-unrelated scenes as deftly as possible. He moves the bodies around efficiently. Nobody steps in front of anyone else. And the director's technique matches the leisure of the performances. No shock cuts. No stingers in the score or editing. A few touches stand out. Sometimes we see a reenactment of the crime taking place in Strathairn's imagination, from his point of view. In one of them, the victim, a young girl, is trapped in a most prickly looking leafless bush. The shot is all in grayish tones, almost black and white, except for a startling patch of bright green -- her dress, which is an important datum. At another point in the film, the writer is imagining the victim standing at the side of a hairpin turn on a country road. Like some other flashbacks, this one is tinted slightly yellow. (Better than shivering dissolve, no?) Again from his point of view, we see the girl in medium shot, flapping her arms with impatience, obviously waiting for someone or something, although we don't know who or what, until she stops shifting around, turns slowly and stares deliberately into the camera. It is, trust me on this, an extremely eerie moment. And done almost offhandedly, almost without effort.