Louder Than Bombs

source: Louder Than Bombs

I found it very hard to follow this movie. Slow moving, out of sync. Who is that character? Is it past or present? I fast forwarded through a lot of scenes that were not necessary to film like long walks and drives. The youngest son, was he ever told of his mom's suicide? Was it a suicide? It made me feel uncomfortable throughout.

This film tells the story of a father and his two teenage sons, who core cope with the untimely death of their wife / mother due to a traffic accident. Their grief is further complicated by a breakdown on communication. I tried very hard to understand the story, but honestly I didn't understand a thing. "Louder Than Bombs" tries to tell a story of a dysfunctional family, but it ends up being an aimless drivel. I have no idea what the story is trying to convey. It jumps between the past and present inexplicably, and there is little continuity and connection between the past and present. And what's the fascination with decomposition of bodies? Those scenes are just plain gross. Perhaps the scenes are there to be provocative, but they simply alienate viewers from the film. Furthermore, it is not interesting to see teenagers sulk all the time. I regret having wasted my time watching this indecipherable collage of scenes.

I did not experience the powerful emotions that I am sure this movie was meant to elicit. There are probably a few reasons for this. First of all, there was not enough history to the characters - what made them tick? What were they like before her death? What about her? Was the depression always there or did her travels bring it on? Secondly, with the exception of Byrne, the characters were not likable (perhaps if we had more history, we could like them more by understanding them more). The sons were just horrible - I get grief - I have been there. But you don't spit in your teacher's face because she is dating your Dad, who deserves some tiny bit of light in his dark life while trying to raise his troubled boys alone. You don't cheat on your wife who just gave birth - you just don't - even if she is a nag. Lastly, you don't kill yourself when you have a family who loves you - it is the ultimate selfish act under these circumstances - more selfish than cheating on your hubby (oh, you did that, too). Byrne was the only one who walked away with my sympathies.

No likable characters, or at least, all the male characters - Jonah, Gene and Conrad, which were the leads really, are really not all that personable. The characters are somewhat irritating, and their inability to communicate with each other extends all the way past the fourth wall, to the viewer. It's very difficult to feel empathy for an adulterer, a disrespectful weirdo and a spineless man. Sympathy maybe, but, empathy was just too arduous. And sure, Louder Than Bombs was attempting a portrayal of raw and actual real life experience in front of a camera... But sadly, real life can be quite boring to watch. I do however like that Jonah gave Conrad the advice he gave him about his (Conrad) love interest, that Conrad narrated that his love interest would forget about him the next day after their early morning walk and that Gene and Hannah's relationship ended the way it did, because all of that, like it or not, is usually how life turns out for the average man, and Louder Than Bombs didn't uncharacteristically abandon that sad truth. But, this film was a bit taxing, though, it had all the best intentions. 5/10.

Louder than Bombs is a frustrating movie because it's so beautifully edited and directed but everything about it just falls flat. The film is about the Reeds, a family made up of a father and his two sons, one an adult starting his own family, the other a teen, who are all coping with the loss of the mother of the family Isabelle, a war photographer who died 4 years earlier. The events in the film are triggered because a retrospective of Isabelle's work is being put on and a friend and journalist writing an article regarding her life warns Isabelle's widow that he plans to be "honest" about the way she died implying that the car crash she died in might not have been accidental after all. The rest of the film follows these three men as they stumble around their lives, reminiscing about the Isabelle they knew and didn't know and struggling to move forward. It's a very watchable film, but it's also somehow not enough. The struggles of the film feel self-indulgent and it's one of those films where women exist only to be lusted over or listen sympathetically to the men as they talk about their problems and throw tantrums. Even legendary actress Isabelle Huppert, as the ghost that haunts the family, doesn't get much to chew on. The worst part is that it's a movie that isn't easy to write off entirely. The youngest son is a bit of a writer and the way his text is layered over with images leads to some beautiful editing and some true movie magic. It's just a shame that these great moments don't quite live up to what they could have been if they had had strong emotion to back them up.

After watching this film my first reaction was that the story isn't about the family (father, sons, wife) and their emotional needs but about what the mothers photographs fails to convey and emanate to the viewer. In this movie it is easy to empathize and sympathize with the family's tragic loss of their mother, the solitude and loneliness felt by the youngest son Conrad, the fathers need for companionship and to communicate with someone his own age and the frustration he feels because Conrad seems to have rejected him, and the oldest son Jonah having to juggle the death of his mother and being a new father and far away from his wife and newborn. Life and death are at conflict here! These are moving talking people; we see them as living beings. BUT in the mothers photography we are only given still images of people who are suffering and unable to communicate with the viewer outside of the viewers imagination. Still images cannot have the same effect as moving talking living beings. The mothers photography showing the dispossessed and their pained faces and suffering bodies becomes art. Pleasure can be found in art! But in real life pain accompanies pleasure. A two dimensional photo of people in distant locals cannot be louder than bombs. Only the living and daily life can be louder than bombs. This film is so finely crafted, scripted, acted, that endless discussion can be made from it.

There are some that say you cannot review a film unless you have watched it throughout. The main reason given is that you can't judge a film on just one part of it's journey, but you must judge it on it's whole, which includes where it ended up. I disagree with that. Very strongly. A film is a visual story, and a story has to have elements that make sense. It does not have to be linear, it can jump around time and it can mix events up, but what it must do is engage you. Even when you don't fully understand what is going on, it must engage you. My opinion is that if you watch 20 minutes of a movie and it has not engaged you within that time, it does not matter where it ends, or how it ends, or what it's message is: it has failed as a story because it was not able to engage you to the point you wanted to continue to watch. That's how I feel about Louder Than Bombs. We begin by finding out about a photographer who killed herself, perhaps as a consequence of her experiences during conflict. But in the first 20 minutes of the movie, that's all we learned. There was nothing more except confusion, disjointed scenes that never made a whole and no guesses could patch a story together that might explain random actions such as the son throwing himself on a complete strangers grave. The lack of explanation, the lack of cohesion and continuance, the lack of flow of the story and the total lack of engagement says to me that the film maker wanted to make the scenes for his own benefit, and not to tell a story that others could enjoy. The purpose of stories is to entertain others, and too many film makers don't do that. They are trying too hard to make people think that their movie is 'arty' in some way, or profound in it's wisdom, when the truth is they are self absorbed fantasies which hold little interest for most people. Why should I indulge someone for a full 20 minutes if they won't indulge me? The story as far as I watched it was confusing, irrational, disjointed, unintelligible, unengaging and even irritating. By the time I got to the girls' monologue at about the 18 minute mark I got incredibly frustrated and annoyed at her awful reading voice stumbling over simple words, the nonsensical words she read for almost a full 5 minutes, and the completely irrational and unexplained thoughts that Conrad was having during that reading. It was at that point that I decided that I would not watch the movie in it's entirety. If I did, and even if I enjoyed the ending, not only did I not enjoy the whole journey but it irritated and angered me to the point that I resent being made to feel that way in order to be given a meaty treat at the end. There should be a range of emotions brought out from a good story but they should stem from the story, they should not include anger, boredom and consternation at the storyteller. So, Louder Than Bombs, highly considered by some to be profound, to me is a very badly scripted movie that does not competently tell a story and distances the viewer to the point the story becomes irrelevant. I'd give it no stars, 0 out of 10 if I could but the lowest IMDb allows is 1. Absolute rubbish film making and story telling and a waste of the 20 minutes I spent on it. It's telling that from an $11,000,000 budget it made only $160,000.

"Words! Words! Words! We didn't need words then. We had FACES," Forgotten Silent Screen Star Norma Desmond rages on in "Sunset Blvd." Norma knew! Louder Than Bombs is about a family wanting to be together and wanting to be left alone. Norma would be pleased. It has FACES! Gabriel's, Isabelle's, Jesse's, Devin's, David's, Amy's and Megan's. An acting ensemble as good as David O. Russell's without the Botox of Big Fame. Director Joachim Trier likes FACES and understands and loves complicated families. Mr. Trier lets us be a part of this one. Isabelle Huppert is their beautiful flawed dead Mom. I was worried I wouldn't see enough of her great real face, but she was the family nucleus, loved, missed, needed, and in the way. Gabriel Byrne is the loving, screwing-up Dad, a not-too-bright ex-actor with bad instincts toward his career and his wife and sons. Jesse Eisenberg (who gets quieter and deeper in each part and says "interesting" better than anybody)and Devin Druid (oh boy, watch out!) both damaged by Mom and Dad's fear and selfishness, are older and younger brothers. You must see these fine young actors before they disappear into Hero Wear and computer graphics. Louder Than Bombs is brilliant hard work. The viewer is allowed to feel fear, resentment, rage, selfishness, heartache and love. And laugh. Remember those? See it.

Saturday night and only 12 people in the theatre to see this movie. Half way through 5 had walked out. Personally I thought it was a good watch, but it won't be to everybody's liking. A thought provoking, moving story about the effects on a husband and two sons after their wife/mother is killed in a car crash. Good performances by Gabriel Byrne and Jesse Eisenberg as the husband and older son, but it's Devin Druid that steals the show as Conrad, the younger son, who gives an outstanding performance as a young man filled with grief. Conrad finds it difficult to communicate with his father Gene, but finds some comfort in his writings, while his older brother Jonah is not as nice as he first appears. Isabelle Huppert plays the mother, who does not feature in the movie very much, but plays a vital part nonetheless. It's a movie you need to watch and concentrate on, but it's worth the effort.