It has taken me a surprising amount of time to bring myself to the point of writing about this film. I feel like I still have to give it time to settle, that speaking about it now might not reach the full extent of my silent rebellion pushed up by the content like a reluctant spring after a long winter.
The only thing I can bring myself to write about thus far, was one of the opening scenes. I feel like this scene made the most impact, though not the most disturbing or heavy, it set a tone that was far from expected. Having never heard of the subject the film was based on or hearing about the atrocities committed at the time, there was a sad quiet mixture of horrible beauty that put this film at a distance, and almost pushed it too far away to take in.
The scene that really punched me in the gut, that stirred emotion almost as strong as (pardon the conpairison) when I first read "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" was when the criminal was in the room with the guards of the prison. Dressed in normal attire, scared and defiant, he wishes to keep his clothes, and is marked somewhat as uncooperative. That's when I was hit with a wave of nausea, while he was forced without words or orders, to strip. I can not say if it was the way it was filmed I could almost say was boarderline genius, or Purly the acting in general, but suddenly I was in this world, and it was terrible.
The slow agony of each button comming undone, was like watching a tragedy that you couldn't look away from. It was like being dragged into a world that you wonder if it would have been better to be ignorant of. The silence was deafening, the surrender of layer after layer was painful.
And finally when he stood bare before the guards I wanted to weep for what he been lost, without even the smallest inclining why, or warning of. He was alone in a room full of people, immediately debased, no longer human, but a prisoner, just that fast.
He was now a subject. I felt their gaze as If they were staring at a science experiment with such extreme indifference and thinly veiled disgust that it becomes tangible.
No comments:
Post a Comment