Life During Wartime

source: Life During Wartime

Todd Solondz' follow-up to the masterpiece "Happiness" is about forgiveness. Forgiveness for everything? Even for one of the biggest crimes possible to commit against a child? Is forgiveness even something desirable? The memory still remains and what's the use of forgiveness then? You'll live through remembering and you're still punished, even if the forgiveness is for real. Deep felt philosophy here, deep acting and not a dead second. There's also a place for humor, a possibility to laugh at ridiculous things, it's a tale of real life. Solondz put the questions, he gives alternative answers and you walk out rather shaken.

Few people possess the ability to unmask human weaknesses the way Todd Solondz does it. With virtuoso technique he shows the silliness of the protagonists behavior and I find myself laughing out loud to situations that would be extremely painful, had I been in them myself. What I am most amazed by is that, just like in 'Happiness', the only characters who feel true and free of "phoniness" are people, who usually would be antiheroes or simply to immoral to ever show up in a normal Hollywood drama. The pedophile and the divorcée, who calls herself a monster, belong to the very few who actually try to express what the really feel. The great Todd Solondz did it again.

Todd Solondz might be the most polarizing comedy director no one's ever heard of. The reputation of his films proceed them; a shroud of controversy seems to surround his work, which frequently depicts explicit sexuality, including pedophilia and rape, not to mention murder, exploitation, and ridicule channeled through a pitch-black misanthropic irony. And yet you might as well be speaking another language bringing up his name and filmography with a mainstream crowd. Even in the circles in which he's known, his sense of humor is a decidedly acquired taste. So specific, in fact, that his latest film, "Life During Wartime," may come as a shock to his fans. And not the sort of shock they're used to. A direct follow up to probably his most well known film, 1998's "Happiness," "Life During Wartime" provides a notably more contemplative take on the lives of Solondz's characters, who have been deliberately and entirely recast for this sequel. Yes, it has its moments of biting humor, dark caricatures, and discomfort, but this time around, he approaches them with a subtler, more refined eye. "Happiness" is a busy, sprawling movie—"Wartime" is a brief string of conversations reactive to the action of that film. It has the tendency to come off initially disappointing, perhaps because it is his least funny film. But if it is his least funny film, then it is intentionally so; for a director who has tirelessly redefined the term 'mature content,' Solondz finally feels as though he himself is maturing. The result may be less fun, but it's probably more valuable. And his characters breathe that maturation. In "Happiness," Bill Maplewood (then Dylan Baker, now Ciarán Hinds) is a struggling pedophile; he is defined and condemned by the things he does. His reintroduction in "Life During Wartime" is upon release from prison, where his sole motive is to track down his son and conduct an amateur psychoanalysis on the damage his behavior caused. Hinds is solemn and introverted in the role; Baker was oily, narcissistic, and well—Childish, if you'll forgive the phrase. Maplewood's recurring dream is a perfect visual metaphor for not only the changes he has undergone between films, but the tones of the films themselves. In "Happiness," he dreams of an unspoiled park, complete with picnickers and strolling couples enjoying absolute tranquility—Before he loads an assault rifle and lays them all to waste. In "Wartime," Maplewood revisits the park, where a single elusive individual, scrubbed and out of focus, turns to him with a rose in hand. What I find most interesting, however, is not the way Solondz reconsiders these characters, but how he reconsiders the idea of the sequel. He's dabbled before in casting multiple performers in a single role—His last film, "Palindromes," had eight actresses portraying its protagonist. But with "Life During Wartime" he commits entirely, while at the same time creating a film purposefully asimilar to the existing work. It may not be as exciting or as groundbreaking a film as "Happiness" is and was, but it's more interesting for its reservations. The converse, 'Hollywood' approach would have been to outdo the original, to push the envelope even further, and the result would be infinitely less genuine. Instead, Solondz throws a curveball: treating his characters with unprecedented compassion (though only by comparison to his other films), and challenging our preconceived notions of both what a sequel is, and what a Todd Solondz film is. "Life During Wartime" won't win over many detractors (they probably haven't heard of it anyway), and it even runs the risk of aliening fans expecting more vitriol—Leave it to Solondz to polarize audiences even when his shroud of controversy dissipates. The man has an absolutely uncompromising vision, and he's still one of the greatest comedy directors working today, whether you've heard of him or not.

I saw Life During Wartime today at the Toronto International Film Festival. This definitely will be a film to divide audiences--like Solondz's other works from what I've heard. I'm definitely on the side of having enjoyed and appreciate it as an intelligent, thought- provoking, and well-written dark comedy/drama (it certainly defies classification!). Admittedly the pace is slow and the film drags occasionally. Most of the scenes consist of conversations between just two characters, that alternate between depressing and unintentionally hilarious (owing largely to self-absorbed or tactless exchanges). LDW is a smart film, it's true-to-life, and it has a lot to say about the nature of forgiveness. You'll see a lot of crying and people apologizing to each other. All of the characters are victims, in a one way or another, and are at with with themselves or with demons from their past. And each character has a different stance on forgiveness. The audience is left to wonder whether it's best to forgive and forget, forgive but never forget, forget but never forgive, or neither forget nor forgive)... Confused? So was I, but it's fun to discuss afterwards, and put the various characters views on forgiveness into place after the film--and how factors like religion and age interact with these views. Solondz also prompts us to consider the role of forgiveness in 9/11 and the war in the Middle East. In the end the only real complaint I had was that the film ended so suddenly. I hope we get to revisit these characters one last time. For now, I'm going back and watching Happiness (which I haven't seen in 10 years, and will certain help fill in some gaps given that it focuses on the same family).

Todd Solondz comes back one more time resuming stories about joy and sorrows, forgives, forgets and regrets, the same gears that leaded his previous works as Welcome To Dollhouse (1995), Happiness (1998) and Palindromes (2004), in one way or another. Here the story surrounds the life of a kid and the members of his family that are trying to discover the meanings of when and how could people achieve the joy or the happiness in their lives just forgiving or forgetting something harmful enough to be forgotten or forgiven. As always, Solondz plays with dark humor all the time just to relieve the weight of complex dramatic themes, giving the right balance needed to make real hard life discussions into something as ordinary as a breakfast. The characters are well constructed and it's interesting the way they lead with the relationships between them. All the time 2 characters are discussing in a table or with something between them, using it like a place where they can put and throw - or sometimes hide - all their problems and differences but at the same time blocking and impeding the reaching of each other, like a battlefield. Words are like guns and watching those characters hurting each other and using each other words like bullets is shocking because that's what we are, and we are responsible for that. Life During Wartime deals with complex themes, sometimes is a difficult movie for the raw, bitter and impacting dialogs, but you can't run away from them forever. As another one said: "Todd Solondz is unique and so are his films. He forces you to look through an angle that we systematically ignore". Great work once again.

When in a discussion with others, others have the duty to present their argument in the clearest way, but it is OUR duty to try to understand it. Just saying "well, you did not convince me" does not cut it. In works of art, like in discussions, for the work of art to "work", be it a poem, a book, a monument, a picture, a piece of music, or a film, it is necessary that the "artist" presents his work in the best possible way, but it is the duty of the public, to try to understand it. Todd is one of the great masters of American cinema. He is particularly interested in Middle America, middle class, in the suburbs. And one of the main characteristics of middle class everywhere, is that there are certain things you do not talk about. And this is just the way it is: YOU JUST DO NOT TALK ABOUT THEM. Those things could be your father being a paedophile, why do terrorists hate us, or a humongous picture of a young Palestinian throwing a stone at an Israeli tank hanging on the wall of a successfully Jewish writer. Basically, this movie and most of Todd's work is about a country that has made "Don't ask, don't tell" the motto of its every day life.

I would really like to see Todd Solondz produce something on the level of WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE or HAPPINESS again but I'm afraid that I'll just have to settle for watching those earlier works. To be fair, I don't know what he could have done with the characters from HAPPINESS that would have worked better. I revisited HAPPINESS before seeing LIFE DURING WARTIME to refresh my memory. That film crackles throughout with uneasiness. When we laugh, it's to release tension. It's not the cast's fault that this film lacks the same punch. While unrated in the US, my guess is that this would have received a PG-13 or an R for a few exposed breasts. HAPPINESS would have been NC-17 for sure. HAPPINESS was about getting whatever happiness one can no matter the cost to others. This is a film about forgiving and forgetting and moving on. I can certainly forgive Todd Solondz for what he tried to achieve here even as the film fades from memory.

11 years after Happiness, his poisonous stab at moral absolutism, Todd Solondz returned with this equally bleak sequel, a continuation of the all-American domestic grotesque. The characters return, except now played by different actors (including a bleary Paul "Pee Wee" Reubens), as does Solondz' ability to challenge expectations with disarming directness and surgical precision. This is a less consistent film than its predecessor, particularly in terms of tone. Happiness harboured an almost garish John Waters trash aesthetic, whereas Wartime often shifts into something more sombrely lit and handsome, even entering noir territory at times, as when Ciaran Hinds' Bill and Charlotte Rampling's Jacqueline meet in a whisky-coloured bar to do semantic battle before indulging in a bout of loveless sex. The characters are mostly horror movie monsters masked in the fascia of suburban admissibility - none more so than Trish (Allison Janney), the selfish mad-mom who is delighted by the fallacy of the nuclear ideal, lusting after "normal". Her son, Timmy (Dylan Riley Snyder), is the traumatised voice of reason: a humanist on the cusp of corruption. Then there is Joy (Shirley Henderson), a deep-feeling adult alone amidst the animal chaos: frail, fragile and bereft (in mind and body); in search of absent metaphysical guidance; a closed book desperate to do good; desperate to stop pretending any more. Loneliness, rape, suicide and despair all echo in a bubble of carefully constructed sentimentality. Wartime doesn't quite carry the joke all the way. Certain latter scenes, particularly involving Hinds' recently-released Bill, are played disconcertingly straight. But then this is a film about the pathology of forgiveness (the film's former title), the corrosive nature of trauma, and the final consolation of repression and faith - themes in which perhaps even Mr Solondz couldn't find the humour. "You die for me and I will know you love me," says Allen (The Wire's Michael Kenneth Williams) from the grave. No one in American cinema is better than Solondz at highlighting fickleness and absurdity of human interaction, and the paradoxes we contrive for ourselves. And although it can be wearying to endure such an indictment, we will always need filmmakers willing to float like faecal matter in Hollywood's homogenous soup.

If you are familiar with Todd Solondz' work, his latest film follows up on the fractured families we previously encountered in Welcome to the Dollhouse and Happiness, but with entirely re-cast characters, which is thematically related to his previous film, Palindromes. Actually, these films all take place within the same bleak universe. The film is set several years after the events of Happiness, although in Solondz' fractured universe, the timeline doesn't quite make sense if you think about it too hard. However, the characters' development is as beautiful as they themselves are grotesque. Ciaran Hinds' portrayal of Bill Maplewood, the pedophile father originally played by Dylan Baker is superb, as is the rest of the cast. Of particular note is Paul Reubens as Jon Lovitz's ghost who appears to Joy Henderson (played by Shirley Henderson): casting Pee-Wee Herman as a not-so tortured soul (or possibly a manifestation of Joy's neurosis) is an absolute stroke of genius on the director's part. Another standout is the always amazing Allison Janney, it is completely believable that the oh so perky Cynthia Stevenson would turn into this love-starved small-minded medicated woman after the events of "Happiness." This is not an easy, date movie. This director's films never are.