The Childhood of a Leader

Greetings again from the darkness. Brady Corbet has established a pretty nice career as an actor (Melancholia, Funny Games), and along comes his feature film debut as a writer/director (co-written with Mona Fastvold). In this day of remakes and reboots, this one is anything but. The "Overture" sets the mood with video clips of the WWI aftermath and the explosive score from Scott Walker quickly establishes itself as a character unto itself.

Subsequent title cards are broken into three "Tantrums", as we witness the ever-escalating inappropriate behavior from young Prescott (Tom Sweet). In what on the surface could be classified as a nature vs nurture expose', the film leaves little doubt that Prescott is rebelling against the monotony of his environment and the disengaged parents to which he is tethered. However, it also seems evident that young Prescott is inherently "off". He seems to be cold and emotionally removed as he engages in battles of will with his parents … his father (Liam Cunningham) a US diplomat knee-deep in negotiations that will lead to the Treaty of Versailles, and his mother (Berenice Bejo), a self-described "citizen of the world".

Two obvious film comparisons would be The Omen (1976) and We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011). The ominous music and settings leave little doubt that we are headed somewhere very dark here, though it's not in the religious sense of The Omen and it's more global than the intimacy of 'Kevin'. Thinking of this as evil in the making would be a just description, though a different title might have held the ending a bit longer.

Support work is provided by Stacy Martin as the French teacher and Yolanda Moreau as the housekeeper who has moments of connection with the challenging Prescott, but Robert Pattison fans will be surprised at how little screen time he has – especially for dual roles.

Young Tom Sweet is fascinating to watch in a very tough role for a child actor, and director Corbet proves he is a filmmaker we should follow closely. His visual acumen is something special, and offsets a script that could have used a bit of polishing. The movie will probably prove divisive – either you will find it mesmerizing and creepy, or you simply won't connect at all. That's often the case with a creative and bold project.

Brady Corbet has assimilated many wonderful visual styles which he has picked up over the past several years working with master directors such as Von Trier and Haneke, but this is all Corbet has accomplished. Reappropriating stunning visual film language does not a good director make, because used haphazardly the images lose their ominous, dark tone and are instead replaced with empty somewhat pretentious images that have nothing story or acting wise holding it up. So all we are left is a misfire. While Corbet is similar to another young director, Xavier Dolan, in that they are trapped exercising their personal influences, Dolan has more innate talent. I would say that Corbet's command of the camera at times is promising. The sad part is he has a great skeleton but no meat and few functioning organs. The performances are a bit flat, though they are only working with what they are giving. Bejo is tiresome and Pattinson is...Pattinson. The best scene is in the beginning where the young boy gets in trouble with snowballs, a possible reference to Abel Gance's Napoleon. Corbet like Napoleon is undone by his ambition. But I do wish more directors were this ambitious in their debuts. If nothing else Corbet swung for the fences...and he should know better: nobody does Haneke better than Haneke.

There are many films that revolve around evil children and all of their misdeeds, including those who become murderers and killers. This one's different in that the film is telling you from the beginning (including with its title) who the child will go on to become, meaning it's not just an evil children horror film. The opening credits are a blast, mostly because of the loud, over-the- top, delightfully campy music. But it also kind of puts you in a mood for something that is more tongue-in-cheek, and I don't really think this film is. I think it's a good watch, and there's some great directing from Corbet (impressive that it's his first time) but there are also instances where I wish the film would have gone further. No doubt it's a good watch though, even if the last few minutes are disappointing.

A flawed but very promising directorial debut from Brady Corbet. The plot meanders a little, promising more than it ultimately manages to deliver. There are, though, plenty of great moments as the film unfolds and the increasingly oppressive atmosphere of isolation, alienation and menace intensifies. Scott Walker's soundtrack is gloriously weird and over the top, and is used to particularly powerful effect in the set piece sequences that open and close the film. The acting is uniformly excellent. Tom Sweet delivers a fine performance as The Boy, whose increasingly violent tantrums are a sign of grim things to come. This is an intelligent and subtle film. A very good debut, which falls just short of being great.

I like Liam Cunningham and Bérénice Bejo very much, and it is also necessary to say that cinematography and art direction are quite good in The Childhood of a Leader. However, all those qualities are not enough for delivering a good movie. It is definitely not. Not only because of its sluggish boring pace, with different events of varied interest that do not compose together a deep portrait. Perhaps, the very general idea is even worse than that. The script was supposedly adapted or inspired in a story by Sartre, which I have never read, and, then, I do not know if French thinker shared the filmmaker's sins. Anyway, the very idea that a fascist leader eventually follows his authoritarian steps due a permissive education and upper-class family dysfunctional relationship during his coming-of-age years is a bizarre, stupid and childish understanding. I could not understand if fictional Prescott - who director Brady Corbet clarified that was neitler Hitler nor Mussolini - became a Füher or duce in France, Hungary, the United States or anywhere else, and I believe that confusion is intentional, but I do know that fascism does not rise because there is an individual with Prescott's traits and that has been mistaken for a girl. Addressing psychologically fascism as consequence of a troubled mind of a leader is no more intelligent and mature than portraying Nazis as zombies, vampires os extraterrestrials, as mainsteam popcorn flicks often do. We know that Pattinson's character was anti-Islamic and anti-Semitic, but even his possible harmful personal influence over the kid does not appear in the film (differently from the boy's precocious sex drive towards Stacy Martin's character, for instance). Additionally, the general and widespread (not just circumscribed in the family's personal circle) jingoist and racist prejudice feeling in society - and the hatred for the humiliation of the Versailles Treaty - would have been focused on if it were a consistent film about Fascist genesis. To resume, the choice of a horror music score (composed by Scott Walker) does not contribute for acknowledging this movie's political seriousness either.