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The Son's Room
***
Cinema Releases - March 1, 2002
Rated on a 4-star scale. Certificate 15. 99
minutes. Directed by Nanni Moretti. Written by Linda Ferri, Nanni Moretti,
Heidrun Schleef. Starring Nanni Moretti, Laura Morante, Jasmine Trinca, Giuseppe
Sanfulice, Sofia Viligar, Renato Scarpa, Roberto Nobile, Paolo De
Vita.
"You can't turn back time," she tells
him.
"I want to!" he snaps back. "I want to turn back
time!"
And that's the whole thing, isn't it? That's the
craving that you just can't shake when a tragedy occurs. There's nothing
else to think about, really, because there's no other meaning to draw from
it. You just wanna go back into that past that's so close, and change this
and that, and form another scenario, and then it'll all be alright, right?
You know it can't happen, and yet you know you can't stop thinking about
it, and that's why grief can never be solved.
"The Son's Room" stars Nanni Moretti
as a middle-class psychiatrist from Rome -- a guy with two nice teenage kids,
a loving wife, and a generally peaceful life. Things aren't as beamingly
blissful and perfect as they would be in an American movie, but it's a happy
existence. Moretti is a smart, calm guy who hasn't become out-of-touch with
age and has a good way of dealing with the world. "You have a serenity abut
you," one new patient tells him. "You're interesting to talk to... you make
quite an impression."
And then one day Moretti's son dies in a watersports
accident. The movie has followed the routine of life instead of laying on
thick that something is about to happen, and so we can empathise with the
shock on Moretti's face. Have you ever received a phonecall telling you that
a family member has just been killed in an accident? I have. There's a randomness
and disbelief about it, underlined by hollow shock.
"The Son's Room" is about the effect of the death
on Moretti's wife and daughter, of course, but it mainly follows Moretti,
as his distinctive serenity falls apart. Not in an obvious, sudden way. Once
the crying is over, and it's time for Moretti to go back to work, he doesn't
crack up and start dribbling over himself in locked rooms -- his pain eats
away at him, slowly, numbly. He has flashes of 'what if' scenarios. He keeps
his cool, but seems to be straining to do so. Occasionally he gets angry,
turning his frustration to meaningless things like the amount of chipped
crockery in the house, but that doesn't last long -- there's simply no effective
way of venting, and nor is there any point, because it's not going to reverse
things.
Moretti goes on a dangerous fairground ride to
try and feel some physical jolt. He tries to let things out through wails
and sobs. Mostly he just sits around in silence, not knowing what it all
means, or how to feel, or how to be. The movie captures the emptiness of
grief, most clearly in a parade of excruciating scenes where we sit in on
sessions with Moretti's patients, where he has to listen to their petty bourgeois
complaints and hang-ups and keep a straight face while the worst sort of
misery is going on in his own mind.
People who have gone through experiences like
this usually want to see entertainment that deals with any other subject,
but for those who change their minds, "The Son's Room" may serve as a useful
tool of support and reflection. It's a down-to-earth, almost crude film,
a simple record of pain -- the kind of pain you can't explain, can't describe,
can't even understand, really, just show.
Moretti, who also directed, is best known as a
maker of self-analytical comedies; he won the Best Director award at Cannes
for the 1994 film "Caro Diario", and those familiar with his work think of
him as an Italian version of Woody Allen. "The Son's Room" is a surprising
choice for Moretti, and a movie that works in a quietly touching and respectful
way.
COPYRIGHT©
2002 Ian Waldron-Mantgani
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