Morgan Bell
Kynaston
REVIEW: Atonement (response to Cibbuano)
May 2nd 2008 18:25
In response to Cibbuanos "Why I Hate Atonement"
Cibbuanos challenge:
Im going to do a full review of this film anyway so i thought i would also try and give another perspective on some of the particular aspects of the film Cibbuano mentions.
Directed: Joe Wright (Pride & Prejudice)
Written: Christopher Hampton (The Quiet American, Mary Reily) - screenplay adapted from the novel by Ian McEwan
Starring: Keira Knightly (Domino, Pride & Prejudice, King Arthur, Love Actually), James McAvoy (Narnia, The Last King of Scotland), Saoirse Ronan (Death Defying Acts), Harriet Walter (Sense & Sensibility), Gina McKee (Notting Hill, The Forsyte Saga), Brenda Blethan (Pride & Prejudice, Secrets & Lies, Little Voice), Vanessa Redgrave (The Pledge, Girl Interupted)
Atonement is a film like The Usual Suspect or The Sixth Sense in that its final scene reveals a truth that makes the viewer re-assess all the scenes before it. In this regard i would classify Atonement as a "two-watch-film" better suited to dvd than as a single viewing at a cinema . . . you really need to rewind it and watch it a second time . . . and thats where the beauty of the film lies, in being able to compare the first watch with the second watch.
I find it really annoying that every film is always marketed as a "romance" even when the romantic element is more of a sub-plot or a catalyst for the real message of the film-maker. Atonement is not a romance, it is a film with romantic elements . . . maybe 90% of people who enjoy Atonement will enjoy it because it appeals to their romantic sensibilities . . . but if you require more out of a film than just romance i suggest you still give Atonement a chance.
Atonement is a film about regret . . . deep-set, sickening, maddening, guilt-ridden regret . . . the kind of regret that eats away at a person and takes over their life, occupying their every thought . . . regret for things they cannot change and cannot forget.
Atonement is about a 13 year old girl called Briony (Saorise Ronan) who made a mistake which led to consequences she could never fully understand the weight of. As an adult aged 18 she realises the gravity of her childhood actions, the years of growing up gave her the perspective to understand the things she saw as a child, she reassesses the situation and realises she was wrong . . . the problem being that because her childhood mistake coincided with war time and the people she needed to seek redemption from are dead . . . she is wracked with guilt as she cannot undo what had been done and she can not seek forgiveness . . . she spends her whole life desperately seeking atonement.
In the final scene of Atonement, Vanessa Redgave plays Briony as an old woman, a successful writer who has found out she is dying from dementia. In an interview promoting her latest and last book "Atonement" she reveals that it is a biography, but with an alternate ending to real life where she allows the characters to meet up again and live happily ever after in love. We realise the whole movie we have been watching so far was the "version" of the story that Briony wished had happened . . . in reality Robbie (James McAvoy) died of septicemia (blood poisoning) in the war before he ever got back to Cecilia (Keira Knightly) who died in bombings at home the same year . . . we realise what we have been watching up until this point is the fantasy of a little girl, a little girl in an old body who can never forgive herself.
The ending with Vanessa Redgrave is a relatively short scene but i didnt think it felt rushed at all. Redgrave embodied the guilt of a child beautifully, hanging her head and slumping and pausing in shame and distress . . . she desperately wants someone to hold her accountable for her actions, she wants to confess . . . the fantasy we saw earlier of her confessing to Robbie and Celcelia as an 18 year old is for her own benefit, not theirs, as the lack of closure has tormented her for her whole life.
This film essentially does follow a linear time-line. What is does is use a "double-take" where a scene is shown from the point of view of Briony as a 13 year old and then re-told from her enlightened position of understanding as an adult. Briony sees Robbie and Cecilia at the fountain and it seems like he orders her to take her clothes off and then pushes her in the water to gawk at her naked body through her see-through slip, the childs mind sees a sex-crazed pervert. The "double-take" shows Robbie and Cecilia as equals talking, a vase smashes and she jumps in the fountain to retrieve the handle, Robbie cautions her not to step on the broken shards. It is amazing watching the scenes from different perspectives back to back. This happens again with the sex scene in the library. We are asked to compare the two points of view: the mind of the child and the mind of the adult.
I think the typewriter sound serves a couple of purposes. One is to represent the dramatic imagination of a child where everything seems more interesting than what it really is and can be translated into a fantastic (typed) story. We see Briony typing away a script for a play on her typewriter, she is a dramatic kid and her mind takes in all the melodrama of the household like clicks on the typewriter. The scenes where Briony is not directly involved or observing do not have the typewriter noise (eg the war scenes and imagined reunion) but as soon as Briony steps back into the picture as an adult nurse the typewriter resumes. Another use of the sound effect is to punctuate the importance of the typed letter Robbie wrote to Cecilia with particular reference to the word "cunt" as though the typing of those four seemingly innocent letters were the action the altered the course of his fate. The word is displayed as the camera is zoomed in tight to the page and we see the keys hit the page and the ink mark out each letter, each letter is like a nail in his coffin, the typing of that particular word is repaeated four times throughout the film to remind us how dire the consequences of typing it were.
It is also ironic that the letter Robbie intended to give to Cecilia is handwriten and he mistakenly puts the typed letter which contains the profanity into the envelope . . . the typed word represents danger in this film
The long Dunkirk scene makes more sense when we realise who is telling the story and how and why they are telling it. Briony compiled first hand accounts of what happened at Dunkirk and transformed them into one huge winding picture in her mind. The picture she creates is extremely stylised and condenses many horrific and absurd things into one scene of dystopia. Briony herself has not actually been to war, she has just seen the results and heard the stories from the injured soldiers. She imagines the horrors and torments of war going on and on and tiring Robbie out, she is essentially trying to put herself into Robbies shoes and recreate the "madness" of war. The scene has a surreal feel to it with people randomly shooting horses and smashing radiators while soldiers do gymnastics, sing in a choir, have fist fights and ride on carnival rides. The Robbie she imagines is disoriented and delirious (remember she knows he really had blood poisoning) and staggering about trying to find some water. The torments of this war scene also mirror Brionys inner torment . . . both go on and on, seemingly endless.
Telling stories from the perspective of an overly imaginative mind was something that was examined more blatantly in the 2003 Tim Burton fantasy flick Big Fish.
This also explains the continued use of romantic cliches like running after the car/bus/train as it pulls away from the station/side of the road with your lover aboard . . . these are all the imagined scenes that Briony wishes had happened, that she thought Cecilia and Robbie deserved.
There is symmetry between the imagined Robbie at war and the remembered Robbie from childhood . . . there is a scene where Robbie saves 13 year old Briony from drowning and chastises her that they both could have died, that is placed along-side a scene where he happens across a field of slaughtered school girls (about Brionys age) lying on the ground that he is hopeless to save . . . this shows that as an old lady, who was an experienced nurse, Briony can put her own childish troubles in perspective.
There is also symmetry between Briony the 18 year old nurse and the imagined Robbie so we can see that they are one and the same . . . he is a figment of her imagination while he is a soldier at war . . . they both enter cinema screenings at different times, she nurses a soldier who dreams of love on his death bed and she imagines that is what Robbie would have done too.
James McAvoy takes my breath away as the long-suffering Robbie in this film, his portrait of a man in pain is nothing short of exceptional, you can see it in his eyes, you can hear it in his voice . . . in the scene where Robbie meets Cecilia for a cup of tea for the first time in 3 years he is just the shell of a man tetering on the edge of breaking point . . . i found his performance genuine and heartbreaking as we see him deteriorate from and gentle fun-loving simple boy to a sad tense broken-spirited man . . . the implication being that he died because he had lost all hope.
I hope anyone who didnt like this film because it was a "romance" with alot of cliches looks at it again as the reconstruction of events by the mind of an idealistic child trapped in the body of a tormented old lady . . . it is the "romanticism" which is truly sad and moving when it is revealed it is the exact opposite of the truth . . . the atmosphere has all the intrigue of Gosford Park and the irony of Life Is Beautiful.
special thanks to Cibbuano for inspiring this indepth analysis - it was a bit long to put in your comments
Really Long Link
embedding is disabled but this is the link to the youtube video of the "cup of tea" scene where James McAvoy breaks my heart
Cibbuanos challenge:
"If you've got a conflicting opinion, or would like to point something out, feel free to do so in the comments below! My memory of "Atonement" is, thankfully, fading, and I'll never sit through it again, so remind me of key scenes that I missed!"
Im going to do a full review of this film anyway so i thought i would also try and give another perspective on some of the particular aspects of the film Cibbuano mentions.
Directed: Joe Wright (Pride & Prejudice)
Written: Christopher Hampton (The Quiet American, Mary Reily) - screenplay adapted from the novel by Ian McEwan
Starring: Keira Knightly (Domino, Pride & Prejudice, King Arthur, Love Actually), James McAvoy (Narnia, The Last King of Scotland), Saoirse Ronan (Death Defying Acts), Harriet Walter (Sense & Sensibility), Gina McKee (Notting Hill, The Forsyte Saga), Brenda Blethan (Pride & Prejudice, Secrets & Lies, Little Voice), Vanessa Redgrave (The Pledge, Girl Interupted)
** WARNING: REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS **
Atonement is a film like The Usual Suspect or The Sixth Sense in that its final scene reveals a truth that makes the viewer re-assess all the scenes before it. In this regard i would classify Atonement as a "two-watch-film" better suited to dvd than as a single viewing at a cinema . . . you really need to rewind it and watch it a second time . . . and thats where the beauty of the film lies, in being able to compare the first watch with the second watch.
I find it really annoying that every film is always marketed as a "romance" even when the romantic element is more of a sub-plot or a catalyst for the real message of the film-maker. Atonement is not a romance, it is a film with romantic elements . . . maybe 90% of people who enjoy Atonement will enjoy it because it appeals to their romantic sensibilities . . . but if you require more out of a film than just romance i suggest you still give Atonement a chance.
Atonement is a film about regret . . . deep-set, sickening, maddening, guilt-ridden regret . . . the kind of regret that eats away at a person and takes over their life, occupying their every thought . . . regret for things they cannot change and cannot forget.
Atonement is about a 13 year old girl called Briony (Saorise Ronan) who made a mistake which led to consequences she could never fully understand the weight of. As an adult aged 18 she realises the gravity of her childhood actions, the years of growing up gave her the perspective to understand the things she saw as a child, she reassesses the situation and realises she was wrong . . . the problem being that because her childhood mistake coincided with war time and the people she needed to seek redemption from are dead . . . she is wracked with guilt as she cannot undo what had been done and she can not seek forgiveness . . . she spends her whole life desperately seeking atonement.
In the final scene of Atonement, Vanessa Redgave plays Briony as an old woman, a successful writer who has found out she is dying from dementia. In an interview promoting her latest and last book "Atonement" she reveals that it is a biography, but with an alternate ending to real life where she allows the characters to meet up again and live happily ever after in love. We realise the whole movie we have been watching so far was the "version" of the story that Briony wished had happened . . . in reality Robbie (James McAvoy) died of septicemia (blood poisoning) in the war before he ever got back to Cecilia (Keira Knightly) who died in bombings at home the same year . . . we realise what we have been watching up until this point is the fantasy of a little girl, a little girl in an old body who can never forgive herself.
The ending with Vanessa Redgrave is a relatively short scene but i didnt think it felt rushed at all. Redgrave embodied the guilt of a child beautifully, hanging her head and slumping and pausing in shame and distress . . . she desperately wants someone to hold her accountable for her actions, she wants to confess . . . the fantasy we saw earlier of her confessing to Robbie and Celcelia as an 18 year old is for her own benefit, not theirs, as the lack of closure has tormented her for her whole life.
This film essentially does follow a linear time-line. What is does is use a "double-take" where a scene is shown from the point of view of Briony as a 13 year old and then re-told from her enlightened position of understanding as an adult. Briony sees Robbie and Cecilia at the fountain and it seems like he orders her to take her clothes off and then pushes her in the water to gawk at her naked body through her see-through slip, the childs mind sees a sex-crazed pervert. The "double-take" shows Robbie and Cecilia as equals talking, a vase smashes and she jumps in the fountain to retrieve the handle, Robbie cautions her not to step on the broken shards. It is amazing watching the scenes from different perspectives back to back. This happens again with the sex scene in the library. We are asked to compare the two points of view: the mind of the child and the mind of the adult.
I think the typewriter sound serves a couple of purposes. One is to represent the dramatic imagination of a child where everything seems more interesting than what it really is and can be translated into a fantastic (typed) story. We see Briony typing away a script for a play on her typewriter, she is a dramatic kid and her mind takes in all the melodrama of the household like clicks on the typewriter. The scenes where Briony is not directly involved or observing do not have the typewriter noise (eg the war scenes and imagined reunion) but as soon as Briony steps back into the picture as an adult nurse the typewriter resumes. Another use of the sound effect is to punctuate the importance of the typed letter Robbie wrote to Cecilia with particular reference to the word "cunt" as though the typing of those four seemingly innocent letters were the action the altered the course of his fate. The word is displayed as the camera is zoomed in tight to the page and we see the keys hit the page and the ink mark out each letter, each letter is like a nail in his coffin, the typing of that particular word is repaeated four times throughout the film to remind us how dire the consequences of typing it were.
It is also ironic that the letter Robbie intended to give to Cecilia is handwriten and he mistakenly puts the typed letter which contains the profanity into the envelope . . . the typed word represents danger in this film
The long Dunkirk scene makes more sense when we realise who is telling the story and how and why they are telling it. Briony compiled first hand accounts of what happened at Dunkirk and transformed them into one huge winding picture in her mind. The picture she creates is extremely stylised and condenses many horrific and absurd things into one scene of dystopia. Briony herself has not actually been to war, she has just seen the results and heard the stories from the injured soldiers. She imagines the horrors and torments of war going on and on and tiring Robbie out, she is essentially trying to put herself into Robbies shoes and recreate the "madness" of war. The scene has a surreal feel to it with people randomly shooting horses and smashing radiators while soldiers do gymnastics, sing in a choir, have fist fights and ride on carnival rides. The Robbie she imagines is disoriented and delirious (remember she knows he really had blood poisoning) and staggering about trying to find some water. The torments of this war scene also mirror Brionys inner torment . . . both go on and on, seemingly endless.
Telling stories from the perspective of an overly imaginative mind was something that was examined more blatantly in the 2003 Tim Burton fantasy flick Big Fish.
This also explains the continued use of romantic cliches like running after the car/bus/train as it pulls away from the station/side of the road with your lover aboard . . . these are all the imagined scenes that Briony wishes had happened, that she thought Cecilia and Robbie deserved.
There is symmetry between the imagined Robbie at war and the remembered Robbie from childhood . . . there is a scene where Robbie saves 13 year old Briony from drowning and chastises her that they both could have died, that is placed along-side a scene where he happens across a field of slaughtered school girls (about Brionys age) lying on the ground that he is hopeless to save . . . this shows that as an old lady, who was an experienced nurse, Briony can put her own childish troubles in perspective.
There is also symmetry between Briony the 18 year old nurse and the imagined Robbie so we can see that they are one and the same . . . he is a figment of her imagination while he is a soldier at war . . . they both enter cinema screenings at different times, she nurses a soldier who dreams of love on his death bed and she imagines that is what Robbie would have done too.
James McAvoy takes my breath away as the long-suffering Robbie in this film, his portrait of a man in pain is nothing short of exceptional, you can see it in his eyes, you can hear it in his voice . . . in the scene where Robbie meets Cecilia for a cup of tea for the first time in 3 years he is just the shell of a man tetering on the edge of breaking point . . . i found his performance genuine and heartbreaking as we see him deteriorate from and gentle fun-loving simple boy to a sad tense broken-spirited man . . . the implication being that he died because he had lost all hope.
I hope anyone who didnt like this film because it was a "romance" with alot of cliches looks at it again as the reconstruction of events by the mind of an idealistic child trapped in the body of a tormented old lady . . . it is the "romanticism" which is truly sad and moving when it is revealed it is the exact opposite of the truth . . . the atmosphere has all the intrigue of Gosford Park and the irony of Life Is Beautiful.
special thanks to Cibbuano for inspiring this indepth analysis - it was a bit long to put in your comments
Really Long Link
embedding is disabled but this is the link to the youtube video of the "cup of tea" scene where James McAvoy breaks my heart
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Comment by Jason King
Sydney Table
Salty Popcorn
Total Randomness
Will try and watch this week. Nice analysis!!
Comment by Cibbuano
Hunt Famous
Orble Post of the Day
Fat Cult
Techbreak
Some further comments: the scene at Dunkirk - I read that Wright filmed it one continuous take because of limitations with time and money. That's fine in itself, but my issue is the scene being the centerpoint of the movie, when it was almost haphazardly thrown in.
Also, I recognize that the theme of the typewriter was evident throughout the first third of the movie, but after that, it seemed conveniently discarded. The typewriter music was also thrown in, seemingly for effect, rather than making a strong contribution to the film. For excellent use of the soundtrack to represent characters and themes, look at Leone's "Once Upon in the West", where each character has a separate motif, and when they meet, the motifs blend wonderfully into each other.
Anyway, thanks, Morgan, for following up on this discussion!
Comment by Luke
Old Movies
Cane Toad Warrior
Comment by postmoderncritic
Postmodern Critic
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Comment by Cheryl J
Rhythmatism
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Comment by Morgan Bell
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Movie Train
Artist Quirk
jason,
i think this would be totally up your alley, you will have to tell me what you think when you see it . . . i actually avoided it at the cinema because i heard it was too melodramitc and mushy so i was pleasantly surprised with how much i got out of it . . . i shed a little tear haha
cibbuano,
thats really interesting about wright filming in a continuous take to save time and money, as a layperson i would have presumed the staging for such a massive scene would have been far more time consuming and expensive that a series of shorter scenes . . . i found the continuous take quite nauseating after a while and was hoping it would just finish because i was sick of being spun around, so it that regard it was effective in translating the feeling of sickness (from guilt or poisoning) to the viewer . . . i guess it was the centrepiece because thats where the two characters (briony and robbie) really merge and their experiences become comparable? just a theory . . .
hi luke,
the music! ahh there are so many thing to take in with this film! great observation! i really like the sharpness of all the sound effect like the click of the lighters and the sizzle of the tobacco burning in the cigarettes, very crisp and effective in drawing your attention to the finer details!
hey epiphanie,
this is an excellent postmodern film . . . no wonder you like it! haha
you will have to tell me how the book compares to the film!
cheryl,
i got the false impression that this was going to be another long meandering tale of loss and longing like Cold Mountain or The Bridges of Madison County and avoiding it for awhile myself . . . thankfully there were many levels of enjoyment to be had, i found it a very intelligent and challenging film . . . i hope you enjoy it too!
thanks for reading my extremely lengthy analysis everyone!