A History of Violence | Review

Filmmaker deviates from Cronenberg label and crafts a straightforward portrait of the honest man.

The notion of celebrity, mistaken identity and false personality become part of the same bag in David Cronenberg’s instantly gratifying, no frills, to-the-point story that ruffles the feathers at the notion Middle America. A History of Violence can be perhaps described as an allegory for a nation that preaches high morals and doesn’t practice enough forgiveness. Here, acts of violence are a means for discussion and not a means to an end, of course the final body count might disagree with that notion.

Soaked in mystery, the film’s opening long-take is a misleading example for what the rest of the film actually contains. Cronenberg runs a tight 1½ hour ship here, swiftly accessing the inner struggle of a person’s past that may be slowly coming to light and demonstrating how the family unit may or may never overcome the great divide. Littered in everything Americana, mom and pop operation with coffee refills served in ceramic cups, dinner table food with staple colors of orange carrots, yellow corn and green beans and a shot gun riffle hidden in the attic. There is even a high-school eye-rolling drama thrown in for good measure.

How the violence is treated filmically is perhaps one of the film’s better points. Visually, the separate scenes are not exploitative – confrontation is dealt with in a cold-blooded manner and it refreshingly reminds us that violence Kill Bill style and most Hollywood films are romanticized to a degree that if you’ve never seen a gun in real life you might find it cool and sexy to watch. Here, along with Howard Shore who pumps those scenes with even more dread – violence is depicted as graphically unromantic. What is also refreshing in how screenplay by Josh Olson depicts passion in a beautiful state with all of its rawness, intensity and playfulness for reasons unknown. The pairing of Viggo Mortensen and Maria Bello in an adult relationship is far from being dull like the many versions of a couple in distress and Ed Harris and William Hurt who play the “bad guy” roles are actually stimulating and have a curious nature about them, this, despite their brief appearances.

In a year that introduced the notion of the graphic novel adaptation in Sin City, it is A History of Violence that comes out on top, for its overall Cronenbergian treatment his good natured social commentary mixed with a somewhat satirical tone. It is straightforward and yet contains a stylistically dark edge quality – kudos go to cinematographer Peter Suschitzky who highlights both worlds that live within the principle character. Though this is perhaps not as nurtured as his last film in Spider, it nonetheless delivers itself as a solid piece where plot twists don’t disrupt the pacing of the film and where the film’s ending brings out the welcome home rug with a poised meaningfulness.

New Montreal Film Festival 2005.

Rating 3 stars