Winter's Bone - film review
Apr. 17th, 2011 07:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatSaw the flick Winter's Bone last night. Rather good. After watching this film, I agree that Jennifer Lawrence is pitch-perfect for Katniss in the Hunger Games, regardless of her hair color.
Winter's Bone reminds me of a lot of American indie noire flicks from Frozen River to well, Lynch's Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks. Even had Sheryl Lee in a brief role. Sheryl Lee played Laura Palmer in Twin Peaks. Checked the credits - and it has a female director, as well as a female screenwriter. The director co-wrote the screenplay. Films directed by the same person who wrote the screenplay tend to be better than films written by multiple screenwriters or hired guns. Partly because in film, the director is in charge.
The director here does some marvelous things with cinematography heightening the creepiness and desolation of the forest. The feeling of isolation and despair, with just a glimmer of hope - which often characterizes noir films. Except here, the hero is a heroine, and the difficulty of being female in this landscape is emphasized. The use of black and white film overlaid with color is not used to nearly as great an effect as Black Swan, it's clumsy in places, but overall striking.
Winter's Bone has the distinction of being the only film nominated for an Oscar this year that is NOT shown through a male lense. It's directed and written by women. It's a quiet film. And unlike the Kids Are Alright - the men are not the driving force. They factor into it - but the gaze for what it's worth feels mainly female. It's a story about a girl's search for her father - but not for the reason's one might think - not because she needs him or wants him ...but because she has to find him or she will literally lose her home. The sheriff tells her that if her father doesn't show up in court or she doesn't produce evidence of his death - the bonds men will take her home as collateral.
Winter's Bone if anything demonstrates how unnecessary and problematic the men are to this girl's life. It's the women, in the end, who aid her in finding her father, just as it is the women who beat her up. Her uncle - who attempts to assist, doesn't really and is proven to be largely ineffectual.
In a world seemingly run by men, the backwoods of rural Missouri, the women are fierce and hold their own. In some respects far more adeptly then they do in the realm of professional ballet or computers or for that matter family politics in upper-middle class surburban California.
It's not a pretty film, and is gruesome at times, the violence when it occurs you feel in your gut.
Like Frozen River - there's a stillness and slow...flow to the film that we don't see in
over-produced tales like Inception or Social Network. There are moments here, where you just look at the trees and the sky, or the camera stays on a little girl jumping about on her toy horse on a trampoline. The rainy sky. The bleak mid-winter. Just before spring. And the dialogue...is not neat and clipped and precise like Social Network, it's softer, folksy, backwoods dialect of the working poor. Ree can barely scrub two nickels together, and considers joining the army in order to make $40,000 dollars and to escape...the dreary existence she believes awaits her.
Yet, the film does not end as most noir tales do, any more than Frozen River had before it. If anything it ends on a happy note or happier. Things haven't exactly changed at the end, so much as altered slightly...and there's hope, if only a sparkle.
Highly recommend if you've not seen it. And while I can understand why it didn't win the Oscar for best picture this year...I think in some respects it was the most memorable of the films...or amongst the better efforts. Quiet. Under the wire. Far more deserving than The Kids Are Alright or The Social Network in my opinion.
Winter's Bone reminds me of a lot of American indie noire flicks from Frozen River to well, Lynch's Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks. Even had Sheryl Lee in a brief role. Sheryl Lee played Laura Palmer in Twin Peaks. Checked the credits - and it has a female director, as well as a female screenwriter. The director co-wrote the screenplay. Films directed by the same person who wrote the screenplay tend to be better than films written by multiple screenwriters or hired guns. Partly because in film, the director is in charge.
The director here does some marvelous things with cinematography heightening the creepiness and desolation of the forest. The feeling of isolation and despair, with just a glimmer of hope - which often characterizes noir films. Except here, the hero is a heroine, and the difficulty of being female in this landscape is emphasized. The use of black and white film overlaid with color is not used to nearly as great an effect as Black Swan, it's clumsy in places, but overall striking.
Winter's Bone has the distinction of being the only film nominated for an Oscar this year that is NOT shown through a male lense. It's directed and written by women. It's a quiet film. And unlike the Kids Are Alright - the men are not the driving force. They factor into it - but the gaze for what it's worth feels mainly female. It's a story about a girl's search for her father - but not for the reason's one might think - not because she needs him or wants him ...but because she has to find him or she will literally lose her home. The sheriff tells her that if her father doesn't show up in court or she doesn't produce evidence of his death - the bonds men will take her home as collateral.
Winter's Bone if anything demonstrates how unnecessary and problematic the men are to this girl's life. It's the women, in the end, who aid her in finding her father, just as it is the women who beat her up. Her uncle - who attempts to assist, doesn't really and is proven to be largely ineffectual.
In a world seemingly run by men, the backwoods of rural Missouri, the women are fierce and hold their own. In some respects far more adeptly then they do in the realm of professional ballet or computers or for that matter family politics in upper-middle class surburban California.
It's not a pretty film, and is gruesome at times, the violence when it occurs you feel in your gut.
Like Frozen River - there's a stillness and slow...flow to the film that we don't see in
over-produced tales like Inception or Social Network. There are moments here, where you just look at the trees and the sky, or the camera stays on a little girl jumping about on her toy horse on a trampoline. The rainy sky. The bleak mid-winter. Just before spring. And the dialogue...is not neat and clipped and precise like Social Network, it's softer, folksy, backwoods dialect of the working poor. Ree can barely scrub two nickels together, and considers joining the army in order to make $40,000 dollars and to escape...the dreary existence she believes awaits her.
Yet, the film does not end as most noir tales do, any more than Frozen River had before it. If anything it ends on a happy note or happier. Things haven't exactly changed at the end, so much as altered slightly...and there's hope, if only a sparkle.
Highly recommend if you've not seen it. And while I can understand why it didn't win the Oscar for best picture this year...I think in some respects it was the most memorable of the films...or amongst the better efforts. Quiet. Under the wire. Far more deserving than The Kids Are Alright or The Social Network in my opinion.
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no subject
Date: 2011-04-17 11:50 pm (UTC)I actually just got my copy of this film in the mail yesterday and I'm looking forward to watching it again.
shown through a male lense. It's directed and written by women
I remember the novel was written by a man (checks: Daniel Woodrell), but yes! Debra Granik directed and co-wrote the screenplay with Anna Rosellini.
Winter's Bone if anything demonstrates how unnecessary and problematic the men are to this girl's life. It's the women, in the end, who aid her in finding her father, just as it is the women who beat her up. Her uncle - who attempts to assist, doesn't really and is proven to be largely ineffectual.
Yes, this was what stood out to me the most as well.
You pointed out how it was the women who hit Ree, that the women were violent. I remember the scene where her uncle comes to collect her from the gang beating her and he demands to know who hit her. If it had been a man, there'd have been a fight. But because a woman hit her, it was domestic business and Ree's uncle didn't have to start a pissing contest because another man abused his property. It felt to me like the women were using the violence they'd learned at the hands of the men, that it had leeched into their lives as a means of survival and that these women actually were using violence against Ree as a means of helping her and their kin.
The women hit Ree to dissuade her from pursuing her father, in essence looking out for her welfare and maybe even protecting her from the more brutal violence of the men, but by dealing out the punishment themselves, they also protect their menfolk from retaliation. Men wage wars, women spank the children.
It just struck me as very, very rich in terms of the psychology and culture of this community. Complex and intriguing.
It's one of my favorite movies from this past year. Winter's Bone and Black Swan made the biggest impression on me.
no subject
Date: 2011-04-18 11:16 pm (UTC)The women hit Ree to dissuade her from pursuing her father, in essence looking out for her welfare and maybe even protecting her from the more brutal violence of the men, but by dealing out the punishment themselves, they also protect their menfolk from retaliation. Men wage wars, women spank the children.
Hadn't thought of it that way, but it's true. They attempted to stop her from pestering the old man - who they knew meant her harm. And when she didn't listen they beat her up, then drug her inside to chat. Finally they do help her find her father - because they don't like what people are saying about them. They want to set the record straight.
The violence has permeated their lives. And they defend the peace by using it themselves.
From the old women's perspective - they are in an odd way protecting Ree and their men and their way of life. Tear-drop makes it clear that if the men had hit Ree - he'd have to do something and if he knew who killed his brother - he'd have to take action. Ree makes it clear she doesn't care - she just wants to find his body to resolve the problem.
And the old women force her to participate - they don't baby her, and they don't do it for her.
Agree -- Winter's Bone and Black Swan were the two that made the biggest impressions on me as well. In some respects I prefer Winter's Bone.
no subject
Date: 2011-04-18 11:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-04-19 04:23 pm (UTC)Have you tried "Justified"? You should, it's similar, particularly the second season. There's a story thread in Justified that reminds me a lot of Winter's Bone.