The viewer is warned by the director at the onset, but it is nonetheless a terrifying portrayal that kept my heart in my throat until the very end. The fable is set in the Middle Ages, and the armored knight on horseback in the opening scene leads one to expect an exalted image of "heroism," but this expectation is exploded in gradually mounting fashion, almost like the medieval battering rams beating down the castle door.
First, the child murders to fulfill his father's charge; then he grows up without love, as he has deprived his mother of love, setting in motion an ever more insidious chain reaction of smoldering hate. The child now grown up as the knight of the castle goes away to the wars, after having given the world a son, Arnaud, and daughter, Beatrice, who is purity personified. (She reminded me of the daughter in "Virgin Spring.")
Awaiting her father, we see her communion with nature and the primitive Virgin and Child icon that sits in judgement throughout the film. Beatrice expresses loving innocence and expects it in return, but when her father returns, each act reveals with a shock his real (or changed) nature: seated at table, he finishes eating, washes his hands, and, after he has cruelly described his son as a coward, he sees his son still eating, and further humiliates him in a pattern that culminates in an act that will cause terror even in those inured to the depiction of violence and depravity in today's movies. The rape of Beatrice by her father is in itself but one further step taking his blameless offspring into his descent into hell; while the last incident with his son forced to dress as a girl to be raped as prey is the most horrific of all and certainly ranks with the real-life event in "Boys don't cry."
Throughout the film, Tavernier seems to be showing us a window into two worlds: that of the "real" Crusades, and that of the contemporary era, where acts of violence are almost the only way some beings can communicate. We are meant to feel the same terror that Beatrice, in a remarkable performance by Julie Delpy, endures, and that of her brother, played by the director's son, Nils. As for Donnadieu as the father, he inhabits the role with a coldness and brutality glimpsed in his eyes in an early closeup at table that immedately tells Beatrice (and us) that something is amiss.
Moviemakers today seem not to be able to get by without sex and violence, and the intention is often to shock and titillate for its own sake. But through Tavernier's lens, we experience the genuine emotion of the actions, almost unaware of the "acting" per se. The ultimate compliment to the cast and director. Some previous reviewers have asked what is the point of the film except to depict a horrific case of child/family abuse? As a fable, I believe the director is saying there has been no "progress" in human nature.
One final point: this movie also encapsulates Tavernier's attitude toward the horrors of war (Capitaine Conan, La Vie et Rien d'autre, etc) in another guise -- war dehumanizes the living. If we compare this film with his Un Dimanche a la Campagne, we will understand the meaning of cruelty in the balance of his values and his aesthetic of spirituality in daily life as expressed in the faces of children, or Beatrice (or Sabine Azema's). Five stars ***** but not for the weak-hearted.
First, the child murders to fulfill his father's charge; then he grows up without love, as he has deprived his mother of love, setting in motion an ever more insidious chain reaction of smoldering hate. The child now grown up as the knight of the castle goes away to the wars, after having given the world a son, Arnaud, and daughter, Beatrice, who is purity personified. (She reminded me of the daughter in "Virgin Spring.")
Awaiting her father, we see her communion with nature and the primitive Virgin and Child icon that sits in judgement throughout the film. Beatrice expresses loving innocence and expects it in return, but when her father returns, each act reveals with a shock his real (or changed) nature: seated at table, he finishes eating, washes his hands, and, after he has cruelly described his son as a coward, he sees his son still eating, and further humiliates him in a pattern that culminates in an act that will cause terror even in those inured to the depiction of violence and depravity in today's movies. The rape of Beatrice by her father is in itself but one further step taking his blameless offspring into his descent into hell; while the last incident with his son forced to dress as a girl to be raped as prey is the most horrific of all and certainly ranks with the real-life event in "Boys don't cry."
Throughout the film, Tavernier seems to be showing us a window into two worlds: that of the "real" Crusades, and that of the contemporary era, where acts of violence are almost the only way some beings can communicate. We are meant to feel the same terror that Beatrice, in a remarkable performance by Julie Delpy, endures, and that of her brother, played by the director's son, Nils. As for Donnadieu as the father, he inhabits the role with a coldness and brutality glimpsed in his eyes in an early closeup at table that immedately tells Beatrice (and us) that something is amiss.
Moviemakers today seem not to be able to get by without sex and violence, and the intention is often to shock and titillate for its own sake. But through Tavernier's lens, we experience the genuine emotion of the actions, almost unaware of the "acting" per se. The ultimate compliment to the cast and director. Some previous reviewers have asked what is the point of the film except to depict a horrific case of child/family abuse? As a fable, I believe the director is saying there has been no "progress" in human nature.
One final point: this movie also encapsulates Tavernier's attitude toward the horrors of war (Capitaine Conan, La Vie et Rien d'autre, etc) in another guise -- war dehumanizes the living. If we compare this film with his Un Dimanche a la Campagne, we will understand the meaning of cruelty in the balance of his values and his aesthetic of spirituality in daily life as expressed in the faces of children, or Beatrice (or Sabine Azema's). Five stars ***** but not for the weak-hearted.