: History of Violence
Director: David Cronenberg
I wouldn’t say this is a great film, but it’s certainly above average. It’s an intriguing premise: a regular guy working in his diner defends himself from criminals and shoots and kills two of them. Where did he learn such skills? What is his background? Suddenly questions are being asked, and the man’s family begins to wonder who he is. Mysterious strangers visit the town and claim they know the man, that he’s not Tom, but Joey, a gangster. The film is a lot like Clint Eastwood’s amazing
That’s impressive, but the film has two key flaws. One, the story is too linear and ordinary. On the one hand I like that — it’s better than the overly complicated plots most films use — but this film hints at so much more that we’re left disappointed at the ordinary ending. We’re wanting to do something superhuman and have him kill like 50 people at the end instead of just a handful. This could have been corrected by less foreshadowing that something amazing was going to happen at the end. The second flaw is that the film only hints at the complex inter-personal relationships of the man with his family. When it does it’s very good, but it doesn’t go far enough. There are lots of scenes of “profound looks” between wife and husband, but I wanted more dialog, more literal expression, where she can question him about his past, ask him what it’s like to kill, etc. Instead she’s quietly angry and frustrated, sealing him off with silence, and he’s not the most talkative man. The result is that we’re left unsure of what we’ve seen. Is the man a hero? A murderer? An anti-hero? The silence leaves us with more questions than answers. While some abiguity is good, in this case, it weakens the most powerful aspect of the film. If you watch Unforgiven, it is filled with lectures on the nature of violence and evil, and it clearly condems killings. History has one such moment, where the killer dad scolds his son for fighting at school, but the moment is thrown away when the kid reacts angrily and storms off, reminding the dad of his own violence past, and the dad is left puzzled and unsure of himself. Granted, he’s a different character from Eastwood’s, but there are still many similarities, and Clint’s film is better. History isn’t bad at all: it’s just not quite great. I’d still recommend you see it for yourself and make your own judgement, however. It’s a deeply personal film and everyone must understand it in their own way.
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