"Troubled Water" tells an engrossing story that explores some ticklish questions: What's the difference between forgiveness by a supreme being, forgiveness by organized religion, and forgiveness by victims? Does a perpetrator's ability to move on depend on him being completely honest with either himself or the victims? When does fear of a crime beget another crime? How far do the effects of a bad event spread, and for how long? Can one "pay his debt to society" and move on just as though nothing happened, or do some of the consequences of a crime persist over a lifetime? Does what is best to say "legally" differ from what is best to say to the people involved? The film explores these questions but doesn't offer easy answers to them.
Drug addiction is not among the questions this film explores. It's a big part of the underpinning of the story as it motivates the crime, but it isn't the topic of the film. Without question the film judges the effects of drug addiction to be bad. But it simply uses drug addiction as part of its background and doesn't delve into the what or the how.
Psychology and ethics are important; this is not an "action" film nor a "Sfx" film. Although the sensibility is "European", the questions being explored resonate in any "western" culture. (I have some doubts though the film would be compelling in a completely different cultural context.)
The thematic connections with the Simon&Garfunkle song are restrained, even subtle. In fact if it weren't for the title and the publicity, I likely wouldn't have thought of the song.
The principal cinematic device is showing the same scene again but from a different point of view. Secondarily there are lots of short flashbacks which show a character's internal mental state. Per a current style, the film cuts back and forth in time. But this jumping is mostly minor, so that even though there are no obvious visual clues to which time is being shown (sepia tone, very soft focus, etc.), the viewer doesn't have to expend too much effort trying to puzzle out what happened when. The one big exception is the overall structure (which is really rather simple): the first part of the film is the narrative from the point of view of the perpetrator, the second part is a very similar narrative but from the point of view of the principal victim, and in the third part the two narratives crash together.
The cinematography is unremarkably pleasant; there are only a small handful of shots you might want to frame on your wall. The action is sometimes indoors and sometimes outdoors and sometimes in between, and the camera handles them all equally well. The camera is very much in service of telling the story and does not have a life of its own.
The sound is quite good and is seamlessly integrated; there are no problems hearing or understanding something and no problems being distracted by some ambient sound. I did notice though that in the organ scenes, the music I was hearing often didn't exactly match the actions of the fingers I was seeing fly over the keys. It was almost as if some of the music had been selected after the filming was finished. The effect is not bothersome though - in fact I doubt most viewers will even notice it. The English subtitles are good. There was never a problem with legibility, they didn't contain any distracting typos or colloquial spellings, and only a couple times did I have the odd feeling of not immediately grasping who said what.
The setting is clearly "somewhere else", specifically a city in Norway. Travel by bicycle rather than by car is common. Houses are more or less side by side rather than set apart on large pieces of land (as in U.S. suburbia). Semi-permanent living in apartments/condos is common. Kitchen sinks have a dropout in front. Plumbing and wiring are sometimes on the outside rather than the inside of walls. Garages are barely big enough for a car. While dangerous areas of parks are not fenced off, plenty of discreet fences subdivide most of the land into smallish areas.
The time appears to be late spring. People are comfortable in shirtsleeves, they spend lots of time outdoors, and they act like they don't even notice the weather. There's nary a hint that there might sometimes be snow and ice.
Mostly cultural differences between the film and the U.S. are insignificant, nothing more than points of interest to be noted in passing. One cultural difference though is critical to accepting the story: the common practice of parking small children in strollers outside of cafés. It's unremarkable where the film's story occurs; on the other hand assuming U.S. cultural norms about small children being more than a few feet away from their caregiver could make it pretty easy to fundamentally disbelieve the story.
(As with any "foreign" film, if you're allergic to hearing a language other than your own or to reading subtitles or to seeing an unfamiliar place or to temporarily accepting some alternate cultural norms, this film is not for you. Perhaps there'll be an American "remake". If on the other hand you enjoy stories that don't bash you over the head with their morals, this film is an excellent argument for much wider distribution of "non-blockbuster" films in the U.S.)
Drug addiction is not among the questions this film explores. It's a big part of the underpinning of the story as it motivates the crime, but it isn't the topic of the film. Without question the film judges the effects of drug addiction to be bad. But it simply uses drug addiction as part of its background and doesn't delve into the what or the how.
Psychology and ethics are important; this is not an "action" film nor a "Sfx" film. Although the sensibility is "European", the questions being explored resonate in any "western" culture. (I have some doubts though the film would be compelling in a completely different cultural context.)
The thematic connections with the Simon&Garfunkle song are restrained, even subtle. In fact if it weren't for the title and the publicity, I likely wouldn't have thought of the song.
The principal cinematic device is showing the same scene again but from a different point of view. Secondarily there are lots of short flashbacks which show a character's internal mental state. Per a current style, the film cuts back and forth in time. But this jumping is mostly minor, so that even though there are no obvious visual clues to which time is being shown (sepia tone, very soft focus, etc.), the viewer doesn't have to expend too much effort trying to puzzle out what happened when. The one big exception is the overall structure (which is really rather simple): the first part of the film is the narrative from the point of view of the perpetrator, the second part is a very similar narrative but from the point of view of the principal victim, and in the third part the two narratives crash together.
The cinematography is unremarkably pleasant; there are only a small handful of shots you might want to frame on your wall. The action is sometimes indoors and sometimes outdoors and sometimes in between, and the camera handles them all equally well. The camera is very much in service of telling the story and does not have a life of its own.
The sound is quite good and is seamlessly integrated; there are no problems hearing or understanding something and no problems being distracted by some ambient sound. I did notice though that in the organ scenes, the music I was hearing often didn't exactly match the actions of the fingers I was seeing fly over the keys. It was almost as if some of the music had been selected after the filming was finished. The effect is not bothersome though - in fact I doubt most viewers will even notice it. The English subtitles are good. There was never a problem with legibility, they didn't contain any distracting typos or colloquial spellings, and only a couple times did I have the odd feeling of not immediately grasping who said what.
The setting is clearly "somewhere else", specifically a city in Norway. Travel by bicycle rather than by car is common. Houses are more or less side by side rather than set apart on large pieces of land (as in U.S. suburbia). Semi-permanent living in apartments/condos is common. Kitchen sinks have a dropout in front. Plumbing and wiring are sometimes on the outside rather than the inside of walls. Garages are barely big enough for a car. While dangerous areas of parks are not fenced off, plenty of discreet fences subdivide most of the land into smallish areas.
The time appears to be late spring. People are comfortable in shirtsleeves, they spend lots of time outdoors, and they act like they don't even notice the weather. There's nary a hint that there might sometimes be snow and ice.
Mostly cultural differences between the film and the U.S. are insignificant, nothing more than points of interest to be noted in passing. One cultural difference though is critical to accepting the story: the common practice of parking small children in strollers outside of cafés. It's unremarkable where the film's story occurs; on the other hand assuming U.S. cultural norms about small children being more than a few feet away from their caregiver could make it pretty easy to fundamentally disbelieve the story.
(As with any "foreign" film, if you're allergic to hearing a language other than your own or to reading subtitles or to seeing an unfamiliar place or to temporarily accepting some alternate cultural norms, this film is not for you. Perhaps there'll be an American "remake". If on the other hand you enjoy stories that don't bash you over the head with their morals, this film is an excellent argument for much wider distribution of "non-blockbuster" films in the U.S.)