The Son
The Son by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne was everything the negative reviews promised: slow, not like the Dardenne brothers' earlier movie Rosetta (Although, what kind of a criticism is that? Isn't it a good thing when filmmakers do something different?), and intelligent.
The handful of negative reviews that I found on Rotten Tomatoes also accused the film of not being emotionally engaging and I am having a problem with that particular criticism, probably because I don't use it as a criterion for judging works of art.
The demand for emotional engagement reminds me of a seminar session spent discussing the Russian civic poet Nadson back when I was an M.A. student because the professor thought that reading bad poetry could help us figure out why good poetry is good. Nadson was, even with a Mandel'shtam essays dedicated to him, a horrible poet. The particular poem we examined was written, I think, in iambic pentameter, using archaic vocabulary to describe the social woes of the day and the need for civic action. There were a fair number of allusions to classical literature too. And then, amid all of this pomp and high-flown diction came the image that undid the poem: the lyric I stuck his finger in poor Russia's wound and wiggled it around a bit. Now, not only is this gross, it is also at odds with the rest of the poem. No amount of defamiliarization could improve poor Nadson's poem. A Russian woman in the class, however, tried to defend him because he was sincere. She valued sincerity over a flawless poem.
Although I realize that sincerity and emotional engagement are not the same thing, the expectation that one or the other will exist in a good work of art is, in my opinion, baseless. A bad poem is a bad poem even if it is sincere. A bad film is a bad film even if it engages the viewer's emotions. Everything about The Son creates distance between the characters and the audience. The pacing is slow. There is no extra-diegetic sound, not even a crappy Céline Dion song over the closing credits. The shots are predominantly extreme close ones creating a sense of claustrophobia so that the viewer wants to push the film away. These shots also tend to be of the back of the protagonist's head or just over his shoulder. The narrative provides only the bare minimum in terms of back story for all of the characters. The narrative also relies on a network of mainly biblical allusions to move itself along. There is no closure.
This all adds up to a film that is well-crafted and intelligent, if not engaging, probably because the whole endeavor requires too much thought. So what? It's not a bad thing. When I want something that is emotionally engaging, I'll see some Hollywood-produced movie that has a soundtrack, a trailer featuring platitudes spoken in that deep, male movie voice, and a poster featuring characters looking skyward. That type of movie can, I will admit, be well-crafted and, in rare, rare instances, intelligent. If, however, I simply want to see something good, I'll take my chances with movie sans soundtrack, sans moving-guaranteeing trailer, and sans great-and-shining-future poster. I also promise not be upset if the only thing engaged is my brain. -Zh. (edited on 12 April because Zh. is so out of the pop culture loop that she spelt Céline Dion's last name incorrectly.)
The handful of negative reviews that I found on Rotten Tomatoes also accused the film of not being emotionally engaging and I am having a problem with that particular criticism, probably because I don't use it as a criterion for judging works of art.
The demand for emotional engagement reminds me of a seminar session spent discussing the Russian civic poet Nadson back when I was an M.A. student because the professor thought that reading bad poetry could help us figure out why good poetry is good. Nadson was, even with a Mandel'shtam essays dedicated to him, a horrible poet. The particular poem we examined was written, I think, in iambic pentameter, using archaic vocabulary to describe the social woes of the day and the need for civic action. There were a fair number of allusions to classical literature too. And then, amid all of this pomp and high-flown diction came the image that undid the poem: the lyric I stuck his finger in poor Russia's wound and wiggled it around a bit. Now, not only is this gross, it is also at odds with the rest of the poem. No amount of defamiliarization could improve poor Nadson's poem. A Russian woman in the class, however, tried to defend him because he was sincere. She valued sincerity over a flawless poem.
Although I realize that sincerity and emotional engagement are not the same thing, the expectation that one or the other will exist in a good work of art is, in my opinion, baseless. A bad poem is a bad poem even if it is sincere. A bad film is a bad film even if it engages the viewer's emotions. Everything about The Son creates distance between the characters and the audience. The pacing is slow. There is no extra-diegetic sound, not even a crappy Céline Dion song over the closing credits. The shots are predominantly extreme close ones creating a sense of claustrophobia so that the viewer wants to push the film away. These shots also tend to be of the back of the protagonist's head or just over his shoulder. The narrative provides only the bare minimum in terms of back story for all of the characters. The narrative also relies on a network of mainly biblical allusions to move itself along. There is no closure.
This all adds up to a film that is well-crafted and intelligent, if not engaging, probably because the whole endeavor requires too much thought. So what? It's not a bad thing. When I want something that is emotionally engaging, I'll see some Hollywood-produced movie that has a soundtrack, a trailer featuring platitudes spoken in that deep, male movie voice, and a poster featuring characters looking skyward. That type of movie can, I will admit, be well-crafted and, in rare, rare instances, intelligent. If, however, I simply want to see something good, I'll take my chances with movie sans soundtrack, sans moving-guaranteeing trailer, and sans great-and-shining-future poster. I also promise not be upset if the only thing engaged is my brain. -Zh. (edited on 12 April because Zh. is so out of the pop culture loop that she spelt Céline Dion's last name incorrectly.)
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