Life During Wartime (2009) [The Criterion Collection #574]
DVD9 (VIDEO_TS) | NTSC 16:9 (720x480) | 01:37:35 | 7,47 Gb
Audio: English AC3 5.1 @ 448 Kbps | Subs: English SDH
Genre: Genre: Art-house, Drama | 2 wins | USA
DVD9 (VIDEO_TS) | NTSC 16:9 (720x480) | 01:37:35 | 7,47 Gb
Audio: English AC3 5.1 @ 448 Kbps | Subs: English SDH
Genre: Genre: Art-house, Drama | 2 wins | USA
In Life During Wartime, independent filmmaker Todd Solondz explores contemporary American existence and the nature of forgiveness with his customary dry humor and queasy precision. The film functions as a distorted mirror image of Solondz’s acclaimed 1998 dark comedy Happiness, its emotionally stunted characters now groping for the possibility of change in a post-9/11 world. Happiness’s grim New Jersey setting is transposed mainly to sunny Florida, but the biggest twist is that new actors fill the roles from the earlier film—including Shirley Henderson, Allison Janney, and Ally Sheedy as alarmingly dissimilar sisters, and Ciarán Hinds hauntingly embodying a reformed pedophile. Shot in expressionistic tones by cinematographer extraordinaire Ed Lachman, Solondz’s film finds the humor in the tragic and the tragic in the everyday.
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DVD9 of Life During Wartime from Artificial Eye you can find here.
A quasi-sequel to his 1998 masterpiece, "Happiness," "Life During Wartime" follows writer/director Todd Solondz down his preferred path of psychological deterioration and perversity, only this time the monsters of suburbia have returned in search of forgiveness. The real issue here isn't one of atonement, but how much longer can Solondz keep making the same motion picture. Despite newfound political trimmings and an impeccable eye for composition, "Life During Wartime" can't help feeling discouragingly conventional for the gifted filmmaker.
Joy Jordan (Shirley Henderson) has found herself betrayed once again by her husband, Allen (Michael Kenneth Williams), who can't give up his sexual perversions, forcing her to flee to Florida. There, she meets up with sister Trish (Allison Janney), a nervous mother of three who's found a loving man (Michael Lerner) to help wash away the sting of her ex-husband, convicted pedophile Bill (Ciaran Hinds). Fresh out of prison, Bill makes his way to visit Trish and the kids, an act that alarms young Timmy (Dylan Riley Snyder), who's been led to believe his father died long ago.
Forever interested in disrupting expectations and challenging continuity, "Life During Wartime" brings about an entirely new cast to inhabit the "Happiness" roles, revitalizing the conflicts with fresh faces. However, the picture remains a familiar gathering of unnerving woe, furthering the story of the Jordan sisters (Ally Sheedy pops up briefly as Helen) as they reach the next phase of their lives: absolution.
Where "Happiness" plunged into the misery of human behavior, detailing extraordinarily vile impulses with a compassionate touch (and a frothy serving of dark comedy), "Life During Wartime" looks into the process of guilt. It's an emotion shared by most of the main characters, who drag along a lifetime of worry as they search for the contentment they were once promised. It's a troubling existence, in Joy's case a depression strengthened by the ghost of her former suitor, Andy (Paul Reubens), who killed himself after time spent with the fragile woman. It's a fascinating whirlpool of contrition that makes up the majority of the screenplay, as the director sobers up the material to address its casualties. Does time heal all wounds? Should there be such a thing as "forgive and forget?" There's a quiver of pain felt throughout the picture that sustains interest, observing Solondz working to a finer point of confrontation.
Though the film makes an effort to investigate the emotional wreckage through a few chilling interactions (Bill catching up to college-age son Billy is absolutely riveting), the rest of "Life During Wartime" merely teases catharsis. Solondz can't help but wrap the script around his blackly comic pitchfork, attempting jokes and absurdities he's masterfully executed before. The picture is a sequel and therefore demands some form of tonal harmony, but the soulful poison that felt so vital and incisive before is ineffective the second time around, making the picture feel distractingly stale. And believe me, it's odd to watch a film of perverts, pedophiles, and sniffly melodrama (Sirk with a Polanski spank) and respond with a been there, done that shrug. Solondz is a vital, original filmmaker with a clear view of humiliation and vulnerability, but he's inching closer to becoming a one-trick pony.
"Life During Wartime" is a softer film than "Happiness," with a more direct expression of sorrow, contributing to a more meaningful finale of loss and surrender. It's a crime such pure emotional weight is left to curdle inside a static, repetitive motion picture.
Disc Features:
* New digital transfer, supervised and approved by director of photography Ed Lachman (with DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition)
* Ask Todd, an audio Q&A with director Todd Solondz in which he responds to viewers’ questions
* Making “Life During Wartime,” a new documentary featuring interviews with actors Shirley Henderson, Ciarán Hinds, Allison Janney, Michael Lerner, Paul Reubens, Ally Sheedy, and Michael Kenneth Williams, as well as on-set footage
* New interview with Lachman
* Original theatrical trailer
Don't Thank me.
All Credits goes to RBone for original upload.
All Credits goes to RBone for original upload.