Who is the victim? Is anybody truly guilt free? Are any of us capable of being selfless? Do we live in a civil world or are we just putting up a front to hide our animal nature? Director Roman Polanski and Playwright Yasmina Reza ask us these questions and more in their latest filmic endeavor Carnage. An 80 minute conversation/argument between four acting powerhouses with some vomit and pharmaceutical undertones thrown in for good measure. It's mean and raw and diabolically intriguing.
I have a soft spot for films that take place in one room and are based entirely around a conversation (Check out 'Rope', 'The Sunset Limited' and the classic 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?'. If the writings good and your cast interesting you don't really need much more than that. It's a very simple form of film that interests (I think) everyone. We all talk don't we, and strive to be interesting with it. This film is certainly interesting. After the son of Christoph Waltz (aka terrifying conservationist Nazi in Inglorious Basterds) and Kate Winslet (aka troubled wife in Revolutionary Road) attacks the son of John C. Reilly (aka my favorite actor/ oblivious Father in We Need to Talk About Kevin) and Jodie Foster (a cannibal's best friend in Silence of the Lambs) they decide to talk it out and patch over the hole formed by the fighting sons. It starts of amicably with both parental duos agreeing and complementing each other but before long they are being outed as murders and ignorant Fathers, drinking fine 18-year-old whiskey and chomping (but not smoking) cigars. It's lives up to it's name, it really is social carnage.
The whole thing is simply smart. It paces itself well making the gradient of their descent feel true to life and each character fully formed. By the end you have a really great sense of the life each has lead and how they got to where they are now. It's also shot so that we see everything that is said, the whole film is the whole conversation meaning you never feel left out of the debate. This means that when you can't decide which person you believe is right at the end of the movie you feel just as confused and socially violated as the characters in the film itself. I went in strongly agreeing with one side and tutting whenever the other would say one thing. By the end I wasn't even sure if I wanted to think about it anymore because I'd end up realizing I wasn't as nice a person as maybe I like to think.
Then of course you have the four people themselves. Foster thinks she is some form of saint. She plays it with a large amount of martyrdom and a small amount of intense nastiness. Winslet is consistently concerned and visibly nervous until she gets liquored up. Reilly is the one who really changes the most. For a good portion he is one thing then he has the most apparent break down deciding to show his true self, to hell with the consequences. Waltz keeps it cool throughout. He seems like the only one who knows why he is here and what he thinks, certainly something to do with his sketchy line of work where morals and ethics aren't really meant to be valued. All these parts play off each other beautifully, each balancing the other and each representing a different view-point. It's when the spouses turn against each other and the light bickering turns into fully blown anger explosions that Carnage gets interesting.
One issue with adaptations of this kind of play is the simple question of "Why see the film when you could see it live of a stage?". In most cases it's valid. A lot of films struggle to make what would be a static set in a theatre into a lively set that can keep us interested. The house in the film feels incredibly lived in. To the extent that at times I was convinced they had just invaded a real house and started filming. Another concern is believability. When we visit the theatre we can suspend dis-belief because we are aware we entered a room and the players in front of us are restricted to the 3 walls around them. The artistic and suggested are more accepted so for these 4 to stay in this house after all the vomit and such has occurred we accept rather than question. We know after all that they can't leave the stage, the play isn't over. A film is kind of like distilled life. We want it to feel completely real because it has the power to be. How do I feel they handled this then? Competently. They come up with plenty of ways to keep them in the room that end up feeling like little extra jokes. For the most part it doesn't even really matter. The real reason you should see this over a live performance is the cast. They are irresistibly brilliant.
People watching reveals a lot about the people you watch and yourself. In this case it will thoroughly entertain and then quickly concern you in some surprising ways. It's a dark film with dark humor that's hard not to enjoy. It is pure, simple and clean (in a way) and when you do something like that right it's cinematic gold.
JO
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