The 2nd video I have had the privilege to watch from David Cronenberg was his 2004 film. A History of Violence. A History of Violence follows a small town man named Tom Stall ( Viggo Mortenson). After a freak violent attack on his cafe that he locally owns and operates, Tom becomes the center of the towns attention as his actions are said to not have been capable of doing by any ordinary man, and the sudden appearance and trailing of strange men who seem to be part of the mafia don't help his case. He continually denies there claims that he is another man, as he is from the look of things the most normal a man can be. The mafia men start to get more and more brutal, eventually taking his son hostage which prompts him to reveal who he was in the past in order to save him. He kills the mafia men, but his family learns his secret. His family believes they cannot trust him and that they have been living a lie for a number of years. He in a way redeems this by going full circle and killing his former mob boss, gaining back a little trust in his family in that he wasn't the hitman that he used to be in the end of the film.
Typical of Cronenberg, his body horror is very evident in this film as even with it being not as extreme of a subject matter as some of his previous films he manages to but enough blood and gore in it for the whole family. An example of this is when Tom has the gangsters in his yard about 2/3 of the way through the film. He basically out of the blue decides to attack them and gives one of them a rather nasty "Tiger Palm" to the face resulting in a twitchy, gory mess that the camera focuses on for a few seconds.
Cronenberg also uses the character and dialogue do the story telling, not trying anything technical as far as camera angles or editing goes in the film. He does a great job in the characters of showing just how much Tom Stall is the epitome of "the average guy". You empathize with him throughout the whole movie because he, other than a brief part at the end, never shows his bloodlust and willingness to kill casually even during the scenes when he is defending himself.
Overall I thought that A History of Violence, said to be Cronenberg's foray into mainstream cinema, was an above average thriller/quasi-action movie. It kept me guessing with its twists, and the acting overall was very good, as Viggo always tends to put on a good show. It kept me interested in finding out more of Cronenberg's work and im highly anticipating the next movie we watch of his.
1 comment:
I thought too that he made this movie very simple and plain. He could have gone further with the cameras and shots but i thought it was interesting how he kept it very plain, and let the characters make up for it. His body horror was the only trick he really uses in this film, but in this film i found it rather unecessary and overdone.
Post a Comment