Thursday, January 19, 2012

Carnage within Four Walls

A bunch of comparisons started hustling and bustling in my mind, while watching the film: Jodie Foster travelling to another planet in  the 90s sci-fi Contact,  then being a strict moralist and a very judgemental person in CarnageChristoph Waltz cannot get rid of his phlegm either he is a rotten-to-the-bone Jew hunter for Inglourious Basterds either a busy lawyer and part-time dad. And Kate Winslet, once a rebellious beauty on the decks of Titanic, now gave in to comfort, and is ready to cry if you mess with her handbag.

Yasmina Reza is a playwright, and a big name, at least in France and at least within theatrical circles Her play Art, staged pretty much everywhere, garnered her a Tony award among many others.

Now, Yasmina turned her play Le Dieu du carnage into a screenplay and teamed up with Polanski to direct it; and now she's huge.

Polanski, you know already, no need for further introduction. He likes characters driven to the edge, he loves tension, mental situations, all those stuff that we enjoy watching on screen, but they are scaring the shit out of us, if we face them in real life. Carnage, though, IS real life. Carnage is a claustrophobic tale of political correctness, bourgeois values, and the struggle to keep up appearances.

Carnage is one of those rare cases, though; it announces "your time is up" before you are ready to leave the premises. A mere 90 minute treat.

*Try it only if you love black humour -my mum, who doesn't, most probably wouldn't get the point.

2 comments:

ImNotAlex said...

Very good comment and very good movie on the nowadays hysteria that parents go into when using their childrens life as an arena for their own vanity and frustrations.
Thumbs up also to Walter, the 5th character of this movie ;-)

Stylianee said...

If you are not Alex, then who are you? And who's Alex, in the first place?

Thanks, it is a very good movie indeed.