Candied Walnuts Emerald

Affliction (Schrader)

A good film "gay" (1998), lol!

No, just kidding, there ... For as we can already suppose with the sinister cover of the DVD as well as the choice of these four excellent actors (rarely found in comedies, it must be said), it is actually of an immense tragedy based on a powerful novel Russell Banks , and frankly, a movie far less known than he deserves (even an Oscar Nominations and 2):

history to be honest, Paul Schrader has rarely been known as a filmmaker, although as a writer, he has always had the greatest admiration for Martin Scorsese , which he designed at least four films (including the very giant To Tomb open, which I love above all)!

Anyway, I personally find this movie not only very moving, but very well built, very well performed, and produced a rather original way, with a phobia of the color design almost worthy of Stanley Kubrick (if not inspired by him) ... other words, one could almost analyze the work as not based almost exclusively on the blue (at night, depression), red (anger & blood) and white (virginity, but perhaps also death?), option visible from the opening credits and during the very first shots:

Particularly when the initial stage already "hard", where the officer Wade Whitehouse (Nick Nolte , which I love), already quarreled with his parents, away from his brother and his wife divorced, is a bonus way to miss the rare relationship with his daughter, he sees less and less frequently:

one hand, he seems to want to try everything:

But on the other hand, it misses the main course, even if guilty because of it somewhere (surprise, indeed, this attitude has been something almost back to 100% in the famous French film collective Paris I love you, where Nick Nolte plays an extremely close, especially since in this very short, as I called it Vincent and lives next to the famous Parc Monceau , lol!):

Early in the film, in fact, merely seeing the face of crazy Nick Nolte completely "next to plate "of his own job by rethinking the words of his daughter, we say that one should perhaps not go further

What Paul Schrader does not hesitate to inform us by this strange plan (which may have inspired David Lynch in Mulholland Drive ?):

Initially, the screenplay is based on a yet theorem rather simple: the very unexpected death of one of the political friends of Mayor Gordon Larivière (Holmes Osborne ), in a strange deer led by Jack Hewitt (Jim True ) ... But in this case, nothing better to launch the fantasies of Wade Whitehouse to 100 km / h:

Poor Wade, who now spends much of his time imagining what has been happening (from this point of view, the film is very famous enough to think Memento by Christopher Nolan):

And bonus relive the images of his traumatic childhood with his terrifying daemon father ( James Coburn), spending most of his time drinking liters of alcohol, to humiliate his wife and hit his own children:

Also that classical music, the Allegro a symphony gives very often as a result Adagio more soothing, the death of the mother of Wade after an hour of film will finally deliver the opportunity for the family exploded to meet again - especially with Rolf Whitehouse ( Willem Dafoe), the brother of Wade

One of the very few shots of the film in daylight (which is why I said at the outset that white could possibly raise the dead):

As one of the only plans (if not only) where you can see at the same time the four famous actors of the film:

Alas, from there, as well as in a symphony, where Adagio the middle is almost always followed by a very stirred (and often violent) Final , everything will eventually degrade very quickly in a way, say, rather lamentable

which, of course, I can not say anything again, history will not be charged again to write a "spoiler"

Otherwise at the end, after the brain Wade has turned full around in vain assumptions just as "barges" as each other, his father will still eventually die for good, after having scolded one last time:

now very powerful symbols: 1) at the end of the film, Wade, although not responsible for the death of his father, still decide to finally put the fire all his ramshackle house (used for the director, to intervene only at this time the colors yellow and orange, never seen before):

2) And unfortunately, continue to involve also Wade obviously her life as it was already lonely and abandoned in other words, the brain devoured by the flames, and body devoured by alcohol (and tobacco, yes, dsl, I am also a specialist of the latter!):

In summary, whether to have the faint of heart, I always regarded this film as an absolute masterpiece , very black, of course, but on the other side very clean, extremely well constructed, acted, filmed and directed ...

After all, no matter produce dozens of creations, if none of them would prove worth to survive time ... Better not make one that everyone will admire always 10 or 20 years, 50 years or 100 years later (as, inter alia, very rare Wolfen Michael Wadleigh, or génialissime 2001, A Space Odyssey by Stanley Kubrick )!

Or even 300 years later, as too sublime works of our great Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), unavoidable, of course ...