Emotional Arithmetic

AUTUMN HEARTS: A NEW BEGINNING is another one of those independent films that lacks an audience until the DVD is released. Granted it is not based on subject matter that titillates the big movie house throngs, but it is a warmly tender film about the emotional effects of historical traumas and how each of our histories molds our lives. It is a superb work on every level. Director Paolo Barzman brings to life the novel 'Emotional Arithmetic' by Matt Cohen (as adapted for the screen by Jefferson Lewis) with a sterling cast of consummate actors. The impact is lasting.

Melanie Winters (Susan Sarandon) lives on a picturesque farm in Canada with her retired university professor husband David (Christopher Plummer) and their grown son Benjamin (Roy Dupuis), an unexplained single father of his own son Timmy (Dakota Goyo) and caregiver for his physically ailing father and mentally fragile mother. Melanie lives in the past: as a child in 1942 she was interned in Drancy, an internment camp outside of Paris where she bonded with a young man Jakob Bronski and an Irish lad Christopher - taking on the responsibility of maintaining the written history of the camp at Jakob's request so that atrocities such as they were witnessing would never occur again ('Always remember'). At one point Jakob turned himself over to the Nazis to allow Melanie and Christopher to be released.

Now, years later, Melanie is still cataloging all of the atrocities in the world as they appear in the newspaper and continues to attempt to find Jakob. Jakob writes to her and soon is arriving in Canada as an elderly man (Max von Sydow), traveling with his surprise guest, the adult Christopher (Gabriel Byrne). It is this visit that reunites Melanie, Jakob, and Christopher that allows closure to their turbulent history and a healing not only for the three survivors but for Melanie's family also. It is as though it took a quiet time in the beauty of nature and the life-sustaining atmosphere of a farm to cleanse these 'autumn hearts' from the anguish of the past.

Not all of the elements of the story are resolved: we never learn much about Benjamin and his state of solo fatherhood, David's private life that so incenses Melanie, etc. But these are minor exclusions in this beautifully sculpted story and film. The cinematography by Luc Montpellier and the musical score by Normand Corbeil capture not only the beauty of the Canadian landscape and lush colors of the farm in autumn, but also heighten the authenticity of the Drancy camp experience in the black and white flashbacks. This is an exceptional film that deserves a wide audience. Grady Harp

it is that film who seems be perfect. not great but giving the right story, the good performances, the correct message, the admirable atmosphere. it is the wise style illustration to exam the past. to exam, at the fair measure, experiences, pains, errors. and the importance of friendship. it is not a remarkable film but one who gives the essence of the relation between old friends and the geography of this long time friendship. a film about the status of the other in your life. simple. honest. and seductive. a film about the truth behind the death. and about the pottery of the past. so, just beautiful. and, maybe, useful.

What an amazing cast this film has, an amazing cast, an amazing story, a beautiful setting and wonderful performances by every one of the actors (even the young boy). I am shocked that these actors in this good of a film and I hadn't heard a word about it until a good month before it came out on DVD, then imagine my surprise when it is a measly 5.6 on IMDb, what a joke that is. I can't say enough about his cast everyone plays their roles perfectly, the writing is fantastic, even going places and touching on subjects that other movies have been afraid to tackle. I'm not going to go into any details hoping that anyone that sees this film goes in cold turkey like I did knowing nothing about it, I think that made it even better for me. The location where this film was shot is beautiful, the film uses a recurring color scheme through out that really makes the audience not just see it but feel it as well. The same can be said for the style and camera work in the flashback scenes, scenes that are not over used and that could easily be the emotion of the film but wisely in my opinion the director doesn't go that route and leaves the emotion in the here and now. Summed up this film was easily my biggest surprise film of this year, which is my favorite kind of film, one that I expect nothing and am rewarded with some thing truly great. Because this film is from Canada I do believe and may be some kind of mad for TV movie or so I've heard, I'm not sure of it's Oscar eligibility but if it is for some reason not eligible or is snubbed by either it's release date or just plain stupidity it would be a shame.

As a Canadian, I generally steer clear of Canadian-made movies, but this is an exception that I'm glad I made. What a pleasure to watch two old veterans like Plummer and Von Sydow square off. Even in spite of the lukewarm reviews (usually my cue to bail a movie before it's done) I was able to finish this movie in relative comfort. (Most Canuck efforts make me very uncomfortable and embarrassed for all parties involved.) I cannot help but observe that reviewer "Huggo" misused the word "interred" in his review. To "inter" someone is to bury that person. The past tense of "inter" is "interred". I'm sure "Huggo" meant "interned".

I liked this movie a lot, however, as in some previous remarks, I feel that they all came up short on where they wanted to go. I agree that more of the past should have been developed, and tied to the characters in the present. For me, it was a bit confusing that it seemed like such a modern time, and I just didn't believe that they had survived the Holocaust. I felt they should have shown more hauntings from the past, and perhaps a bit more clinging to each other, after having survived in the emotional shipwreck of Drancy. I think, perhaps more of their message could have been brought out if they had just spent more time in the scenes from the past. After seeing this movie, I did some research on Drancy and was shocked to learn it was the French, with the approval of the Nazi's, who did this. There should have been more history lessons, I feel, so we could see the larger picture. Anyway, I loved Max von Sydow's portrayal of Jakob, and I liked Susan Sarandon's suffering, but I just felt it seemed to be disconnected from what happened in the past. I was expecting a multi hankie movie, and only shed an occasional tear. All the actors are really good, and this is well worth the money to rent or own, and to open discussions about the atrocities of WWII and the Nazi regime.