Bookmark this on Delicious
This is another film that isn’t likely to appeal to the mass market, but has every chance of being the kind of film you really want think about. Based on the acclaimed novel by Lionel Shriver, it deals with the upbringing of, and subsequent attempts to understand, a mass murderer.
It’s a totally different situation, but I’ve heard untold cries of where are the parents, in relation to the violent crime wave that’s swept England like the pre-credits sequence of an End of The World’ movie. There are cases where that is true. Junior school children shouldn’t’ be out at night for sure; but as for the rest people in their mid to high teens, are we really blaming their parents for them being out at 16;00? at 19:00 in the middle of the school and University summer holidays? There are parents who have a lot to answer for, there’s no doubt, but as ever, it will be the parents with the least responsibility who will be asking themselves what more they may have done to prevent their children taking part in crimes and making such anti-social decisions.
Here the film follows the visits of the mother to her son, in jail for the murder of several classmates and two adults. Looking at various points in their son’s upbringing and trying to see where it all went wrong, or where it could have been made to go right.
The film stars Tilda Swinton (Chronicles of Narnia, Michael Clayton), John C Reily (Step Brothers) and Ezra Miller, as Kevin. It has been adapted and directed by Lynne Ramsey (Ratcatcher)
(Trailer has French Subtitles)...
A very disturbing subject indeed. As a parent myself I feel that it would be a nightmare to discover that one's children had become dangerous to them self and soceity. But, this is as you point out a subject that is worth talking about. Being Swedish, Norway is very close and after the slaugthering of innocent in Norway in July you wonder what happened to this murderer that made him become like this. Can we, family and soceity prevent these things from happening and what are the warningsigns'?
ReplyDeleteI imagine many of your countrymen( and women of course ; P) are asking themselves the same thing now with the rioting and all. Can we prevent disaster?
Totally agree. As a parent it would be a nightmare situation; because as well as wondering what happened to your perfect little baby, you must start to wonder if somehow you're responsible for other parents losing their children.
ReplyDeleteThings like Norway; some people are just wrong and I'm not sure that anything could have ever made a difference.
As for what's happening here... sigh... a lot of it can be put down to poor parenting for sure but not all of it. Some people have to ask why their younger kids didn't come home earlier and must surely have seen their kids on TV and done nothing. But it's the summer holidays, of course there are a lot of young people out and about.