Beautiful, Heartbreaking, Genre-Bending Film
This film. This gorgeous, heartbreaking film.
What begins as a seemingly straightforward abduction story of a husband and pregnant wife takes on an almost Bressonian level of spirituality in its exploration of the corruptiveness of violence and a true probing of whether people can genuinely repent and change.
All of the leads are fantastic, with the pregnant wife a standout of quiet dignity under extreme circumstances. Like Bresson's characters Mouchette or Balthazar the donkey, this woman is strengthened by the fire of her situation.
The abductors begin as threatening shapes, stand-ins for an expected trope, but then we slowly see behind their facades. They are driven by deeply broken impulses, and in the end, everyone's fate is intertwined with Shakespearean levels of tragedy.
Stunningly rendered, this movie is the closest we'll see to a horror thriller directed by Terence Malick.
What begins as a seemingly straightforward abduction story of a husband and pregnant wife takes on an almost Bressonian level of spirituality in its exploration of the corruptiveness of violence and a true probing of whether people can genuinely repent and change.
All of the leads are fantastic, with the pregnant wife a standout of quiet dignity under extreme circumstances. Like Bresson's characters Mouchette or Balthazar the donkey, this woman is strengthened by the fire of her situation.
The abductors begin as threatening shapes, stand-ins for an expected trope, but then we slowly see behind their facades. They are driven by deeply broken impulses, and in the end, everyone's fate is intertwined with Shakespearean levels of tragedy.
Stunningly rendered, this movie is the closest we'll see to a horror thriller directed by Terence Malick.
- anatomyoffear
- Mar 2, 2023