{"id":3954,"date":"2011-12-15T15:18:32","date_gmt":"2011-12-15T20:18:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=3954"},"modified":"2011-12-15T15:18:32","modified_gmt":"2011-12-15T20:18:32","slug":"film-carnage-2011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=3954","title":{"rendered":"Film: Carnage (2011)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Return to: <\/strong>Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews<\/a> \/ <\/em>C<\/a><\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Film: Excellent\/ DVD Transfer: \u00a0n\/a \/ DVD Extras: n\/a<\/p>\n

Label: n\/a\/ Region: n\/a\u00a0\/\u00a0Released: n\/a<\/p>\n

Genre: Black Comedy \/ Drama \/ Play<\/p>\n

Synopsis: Civility disintegrates as two sets of parents attempt to reconcile a violent encounter between their respective sons.<\/p>\n

Special Features: n\/a<\/p>\n

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Review:<\/p>\n

Although he remains better known for his horror and supernatural thrillers (such as the classic Rosemary\u2019s Baby<\/strong>, and the creative dud The Ninth Gate<\/strong>), Carnage<\/strong> is a reminder of how well Roman Polanski understands fractured human relationships, and the fine stages where characters begin to psychologically splinter after repressed conflicts are triggered and percolate to the surface in all of their ugly discord.<\/p>\n

Before his horror output, Polanski was already exploring imbalanced relationships in his early Polish films during the sixties (Knife in the Water<\/strong>, Repulsion<\/strong>, Cul-de-sac<\/strong>), and he\u2019s generally maintained an interest in realistically flawed subjects regardless of time period, genre, or literary source.<\/p>\n

In choosing Yasmina Reza\u2019s play \u201cGod of Carnage,\u201d Polanski doesn\u2019t just return to the fertile ground of his prior character studies but finds a venue to indulge in black comedy. Reza\u2019s play (which Polanski co-adapted for this short but tight film) essentially brings together parents of two kids recently involved in a bloody fracas. Who called the first insult and whether getting smacked in the mouth was justified is irrelevant to Reza\u2019s play: her drama draws from the marital nastiness that\u2019s brought out when a civil meeting between adults literally explodes into a vomitous splattering of rage.<\/p>\n

Alexandre Desplat\u2019s cheery music for the NYC waterfront park prologue \/ Main Title music (also recapped again in the epilogue \/ End Credits) establishes a false state of civility and functions as bitter counterpoint as the son of Penelope (Jodie Foster) and Michael Longstreet (John C. Reilly) is seen getting gashed in the face with a stick by Zack, the ‘maniac son’ of Nancy (Kate Winslet) and Alan Cowan (Christoph Waltz).<\/p>\n

The drama formally begins in the next scene, where Penelope corrects her draft legal statement for the Cowans in her apartment, changing the phrase \u2018armed with a stick\u2019 to less inflammatory quasi-legal verbiage, and though both sides feign satisfaction before they start to separate at the front door, one can see from Penelope\u2019s visage that she harbors deep upset in having to fake civility for a couple she regards as utterly phony.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s essentially the beginning of Carnage<\/strong>, after which the characters politely dance in and out of the Longstreets’ apartment and verbally around issues over apple & pear cobbler, drinking coffee, and unnervingly reacting to little quips each person lets loose as they\u2019re unable to maintain phony politesse. When Nancy massively upchucks onto Penelope\u2019s rare coffee table books, the characters start to express their real thoughts, including petty marital issues, and Reza\u2019s prose nicely volleys between legally neutral insults to frank profanity, and the film becomes a dance between varying levels of marital discord.<\/p>\n

Happily, it doesn\u2019t turn into a free-for-all, because each uptight character’s been trained to maintain decorum; they may bitch about issues openly, but there are no fisticuffs. Childish behaviour is scolded, rash actions cause bafflement, and social prejudices are sometimes flip-flopped and flattened, as occurs when Alan’s contempt for banal everyman Michael is softened when he realizes the sweater-clad \u2018general salesman\u2019 hides an appreciation of 18 year old single malt booze and various Cuban cigars – goodies Alan\u2019s never discovered on his very own.<\/p>\n

If Polanski had directed a version of Edward Albee\u2019s \u201cWho\u2019s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?\u201d he would\u2019ve made sure there was a balanced exchange of insults, with no clear winner in the final act, but there are little battles with little payoffs cherished by winning parties, such as Alan\u2019s incessant cell phone calls being silenced by Nancy’s brilliant little act of defiance.<\/p>\n

Reza\u2019s play doesn\u2019t end on a decisive note because everyone\u2019s too hammered and puke-scented to suddenly clean up and leave without any second thoughts. Polanski leaves them in their messy state, and in the epilogue we return to the kids who\u2019ve now made up, and seem collegial in their new clique, although whether they arrived at this position themselves or with their parents\u2019 aide remains moot; the kids seem to have moved forward without prehudice, while one suspects the parents are still reeking from their recent bilious exchange.<\/p>\n

The quartet of actors is uniformly strong, as each gets sufficient opportunities to shine, but the real joy is watching the couples lose their cool in small spurts withhold full physical outrage: while the women reach a higher plain of vitriol, the men seem to give in to the madness, admit to their social improprieties but not care an ounce what anyone thinks. Actress Foster frequently turns red as her character struggles for the right and just words which Alan easily deflects with disinterest, and actor Reilly relishes Michael\u2019s eventually sense of calm after he\u2019s come clean about his right wing leanings, and bonds with Alan on a purely male level while Nancy deals with a renewed wave of nausea and neon bile.<\/p>\n

Polanski\u2019s assured direction allows the actors have fun with Reza’s snappy dialogue and behavioral nuances, all of which are contrasted by Dean Tavoularis\u2019 luxurious production design of modish furniture, pretentious art books, and fragile d\u00e9cor. Because of Polanski’s ongoing legal issues with the U.S., Carnage<\/strong> was filmed in France, but second unit work in NYC and background plates of cityscapes maintain fidelity to the play\u2019s American location.<\/p>\n

Reza\u2019s other filmed works include Chicas<\/strong> (2010), adapted from her play \u201cUne piece espagnole\u201d and directed by Reza, with Polanski\u2019s wife Emmanuelle Seigner co-starring; Dreimal Leben<\/strong> (2001)), a German TV adaptation of her play \u201cTroi versions de la vie\u201d; Lulu Kreutz\u2019 Picnic<\/strong> (2000), based on her play \u201cLe pique-nique de Lulu Kreutz\u201d; and several TV versions of Art<\/strong> (1998).<\/p>\n

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\u00a9 2011 Mark R. Hasan<\/p>\n

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External References<\/em>:<\/p>\n

IMDB <\/a>— Jasmina Reza Wiki<\/a> — Official Film Website<\/a> — Composer Filmography<\/a><\/p>\n

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Return to<\/strong>:\u00a0Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews<\/a> <\/em>\/\u00a0C<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Return to: Home \/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews \/ C . Film: Excellent\/ DVD Transfer: \u00a0n\/a \/ DVD Extras: n\/a Label: n\/a\/ Region: n\/a\u00a0\/\u00a0Released: n\/a Genre: Black Comedy \/ Drama \/ Play Synopsis: Civility disintegrates as two sets of parents attempt to reconcile a violent encounter between their respective sons. Special Features: n\/a . . Review: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[18],"tags":[93,911,942],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-11M","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3954"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3954"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3954\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3957,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3954\/revisions\/3957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}