Maybe it's at that point that you realize the extent of your loss or why the aftermath of the death is worse than the death itself...
"The Son's Room", directed and starring Nanni Moretti, is the kind of dramas that don't take risks and adopt rather sober approaches to their themes; emotions aren't overplayed, there's no real plot twist or explosive climax and at the end but we're left with the satisfaction of having shared slices of lives that could have been ours. This is not to diminish its emotional power -there are some heart-wrenching moments in the film- but just to say that, as simple as it is, the emotional mechanism works. It won the Golden Palm of 2001, and it reminded me of other winners directed by the Dardennes brothers, movies meant to show a certain sad reality and implicitly admitting that happiness, for what it's worth, is still cinematically dull.
The film is about a family stricken by the loss of one of their members, the father Giovanni (Moretti) is a psychiatrist, the wife Paola (Laura Morante) is a caring mother and the sister Irene (Jasmine Trinca) is a typical young teenager, sociable and sporty (she's part of the basketball team). Andrea (Giuseppe Sanfelice) isn't a rebellious teenager though his character-establishing moment is a school incident involving the stealing of a fossil. This episode that occupies a fair portion of the first act seems rather anecdoctal once we get to the tragedy, I guess it was a way to show that this family has its fair of shortcomings but they never went as far as life-threatening situations. Andrea was the kind of son that wouldn't cause any trouble to his parents, which makes his death not only sadder but crueler in its freakiness: a diving accident.
Interestingly, the accident involves the father's occupation, as a dedicated pro, he decides to visit one of his patients at home, thus delaying a jogging session with Andrea, which lead him to go dive with his friends. This connection brings a dimension of guilt in the handling of the death, Giovanni keeps wondering what if he decided to give priority to his son, would he or would he have not avoided the accident? The movie only alludes to that thinking, there's never a meltdown about it nor that Giovanni confronts the patient who indirectly started the chain of events, but it shows an important aspect of grief: there always comes a time when we ask ourselves when things started to go wrong. I had the same questioning following my divorce and I tended to look at events within a specific timeline: when I could change things and when the point of no return was reached already, that was mental torture as If things weren't bad enough.
But we do empathize with Nanni for things are perfectly fine during the first act, pinaccling with that moment where the four members are all singing together, so there is a tremendous feeling of waste. Giovanni (who reminded me of French actor François Cluzet) is a perfectly stable man, the epitome of decency, a good husband, a dutiful parent and yet all the foundations of his life are thrown away with that tragedy and there's nothing he can hang on, he's just too moral to consider insanity or suicide as options. But the choice of his profession is interesting because psychiatrists deal with people struggling with the present and the future while his own future is characterized by the termination of his son's life marked by these nails screwed onto the coffin. Not to mention how petty and trivial their whining can sound.
The merit of the film is to display these complexities without the pretensions to offer answers, when Giovanni decides to take a leave of absence, we understand his motives but we're not given solutions. All we see is that the equilibrium of the family is threatened and each member wanders in one isle of grief, dealing with sadness, anger (the sister is involved in a fight during the game) and disbelief. This is basically a film about the various stages of grief striking normal people... or ordinary people, a nod to Robert Redford's film, perhaps the closest in spirit to the "Son's Room". The film could have ended in a similar note, Andrea could have been the pillar without which the family collapsed, Laura could have left Giovanni or Irene turn into a hoodlum, but again, the narrative avoids these tricks and adopts a more serene approach.
Time goes by and an interesting little twist, involving a hidden love, takes the family to the right path, the one that simply says you that life goes on and that the family might have lost a dear one, but it is their grief and what separated them for a while that can connect them forever. Once again, this is not a statement made by the film, some would rather find the ending too anticlimactic or easy, even corny, but the film doesn't end on a happy note, only on a light of hope. Things could get worse but it's part of our nature to lean toward the positive instead of imagining the worse... as long as we're able to overcome that mental block and make the difficult but necessary choice to turn the page... or write a new chapter.
"The Son's Room" has a remarkable sobriety though it's not devoid of heart-breaking moments, the whole sequence involving the announcing of the death is a masterpiece of realism and might be too upsetting for people who lost someone It's all to Moretti's credit to alternate between moments of serenity and a few emotional peaks while avoiding the avalanche of pathos. For that moment only when the sister understands the news, I couldn't give a film a negative review no matter what would happen after.
"The Son's Room", directed and starring Nanni Moretti, is the kind of dramas that don't take risks and adopt rather sober approaches to their themes; emotions aren't overplayed, there's no real plot twist or explosive climax and at the end but we're left with the satisfaction of having shared slices of lives that could have been ours. This is not to diminish its emotional power -there are some heart-wrenching moments in the film- but just to say that, as simple as it is, the emotional mechanism works. It won the Golden Palm of 2001, and it reminded me of other winners directed by the Dardennes brothers, movies meant to show a certain sad reality and implicitly admitting that happiness, for what it's worth, is still cinematically dull.
The film is about a family stricken by the loss of one of their members, the father Giovanni (Moretti) is a psychiatrist, the wife Paola (Laura Morante) is a caring mother and the sister Irene (Jasmine Trinca) is a typical young teenager, sociable and sporty (she's part of the basketball team). Andrea (Giuseppe Sanfelice) isn't a rebellious teenager though his character-establishing moment is a school incident involving the stealing of a fossil. This episode that occupies a fair portion of the first act seems rather anecdoctal once we get to the tragedy, I guess it was a way to show that this family has its fair of shortcomings but they never went as far as life-threatening situations. Andrea was the kind of son that wouldn't cause any trouble to his parents, which makes his death not only sadder but crueler in its freakiness: a diving accident.
Interestingly, the accident involves the father's occupation, as a dedicated pro, he decides to visit one of his patients at home, thus delaying a jogging session with Andrea, which lead him to go dive with his friends. This connection brings a dimension of guilt in the handling of the death, Giovanni keeps wondering what if he decided to give priority to his son, would he or would he have not avoided the accident? The movie only alludes to that thinking, there's never a meltdown about it nor that Giovanni confronts the patient who indirectly started the chain of events, but it shows an important aspect of grief: there always comes a time when we ask ourselves when things started to go wrong. I had the same questioning following my divorce and I tended to look at events within a specific timeline: when I could change things and when the point of no return was reached already, that was mental torture as If things weren't bad enough.
But we do empathize with Nanni for things are perfectly fine during the first act, pinaccling with that moment where the four members are all singing together, so there is a tremendous feeling of waste. Giovanni (who reminded me of French actor François Cluzet) is a perfectly stable man, the epitome of decency, a good husband, a dutiful parent and yet all the foundations of his life are thrown away with that tragedy and there's nothing he can hang on, he's just too moral to consider insanity or suicide as options. But the choice of his profession is interesting because psychiatrists deal with people struggling with the present and the future while his own future is characterized by the termination of his son's life marked by these nails screwed onto the coffin. Not to mention how petty and trivial their whining can sound.
The merit of the film is to display these complexities without the pretensions to offer answers, when Giovanni decides to take a leave of absence, we understand his motives but we're not given solutions. All we see is that the equilibrium of the family is threatened and each member wanders in one isle of grief, dealing with sadness, anger (the sister is involved in a fight during the game) and disbelief. This is basically a film about the various stages of grief striking normal people... or ordinary people, a nod to Robert Redford's film, perhaps the closest in spirit to the "Son's Room". The film could have ended in a similar note, Andrea could have been the pillar without which the family collapsed, Laura could have left Giovanni or Irene turn into a hoodlum, but again, the narrative avoids these tricks and adopts a more serene approach.
Time goes by and an interesting little twist, involving a hidden love, takes the family to the right path, the one that simply says you that life goes on and that the family might have lost a dear one, but it is their grief and what separated them for a while that can connect them forever. Once again, this is not a statement made by the film, some would rather find the ending too anticlimactic or easy, even corny, but the film doesn't end on a happy note, only on a light of hope. Things could get worse but it's part of our nature to lean toward the positive instead of imagining the worse... as long as we're able to overcome that mental block and make the difficult but necessary choice to turn the page... or write a new chapter.
"The Son's Room" has a remarkable sobriety though it's not devoid of heart-breaking moments, the whole sequence involving the announcing of the death is a masterpiece of realism and might be too upsetting for people who lost someone It's all to Moretti's credit to alternate between moments of serenity and a few emotional peaks while avoiding the avalanche of pathos. For that moment only when the sister understands the news, I couldn't give a film a negative review no matter what would happen after.