Troubled Water

I don't really like movies and I don't watch them a lot. And after seeing Troubled Water I know why. The simple reason is that very few movies are as good as this one. This is definitely not one of those sad Hollywood monstrosities that aim to prevent you from having a single thought by any means possible. This film does not attempt to benumb the spectators by an endless assault of noises, colors, flashes, explosions, colorful images, etc. It actually leaves the viewers some space to think, analyze, and simply to exist. Troubled Water does not attempt to rob me of my humanity and my human agency, unlike the stupid Hollywood productions.

This is the kind of film that works through powerful acting and great directing. There are no cheap thrills in Troubled Water. No special effects, no monsters or vampires, no explosions, 3D effects, unrealistic car chases, etc. There is just life, human existence, normal people trying to figure out important stuff.

Instead of silicone-inflated cyborg-like individuals who pass for actors in Hollywood, this film has actors who actually look like real, normal people. We are so used to the assembly-line faces and bodies of Hollywood characters, that the actors in Troubled Water look refreshingly attractive. As attractive as only real human beings can be. And these actors even know how to act.

I'm not going to retell the plot of the movie here. Because great art is not about the plot. The story is never as important as the artistic means employed to transmit it. I will only say that Troubled Water is a film that makes you want to come back to it over and over.

(special thanks to Film Movement for providing me a screener!)

Troubled Water is a masterpiece of sad, vaguely depressing, film making where in the end there's no real uplifting message and not a lot of resolution and very few answers. Will it surprise you if I tell you it's a Scandinavian movie?

The movie tells the tale of Jan Thomas Hansen, recently released from prison after being convicted of the murder of a young boy. He's always maintained his innocence and blamed a cohort, of whom we see basically nothing.

Out of prison he gets a job working as an organist at a church. He's quite good and starts a shy, tentative relationship with Anna, the church priest. He also becomes quite fond of her young son, Jens and starts spending time around him...

Meanwhile, Agnes, the mother of the murdered boy, has a parallel story where we see her and her husband and two adopted daughters getting ready to move to Denmark. She's on what appears to be a school field trip to a church and while there notices a suspiciously familiar organist.

Soon all her memories of the events surrounding the death of her child come up to the front of her mind ("I can't drink hot chocolate anymore," she confesses at one point, remembering that she'd been buying hot chocolate for her son when the boy was taken). Initially she just notices the man, makes some vague platitudes about him and wants to move on, but quickly becomes obsessed, especially once she seems him hanging around a young boy...

The movie is about several things. It's about crime and punishment. It's about guilt and how it can consume you from within. It's about a lonely woman and a shy man finding each other. It's about shattered parents trying to move on.

It's also about forgiveness, and how you should forgive people who have wronged you not for their sake, but for your own, so that you can move on with your life.

It's also a movie that is, at times, quite literally soaked in symbolism. Baptism, rivers, swimming pools and all things wet play a huge role in the film (ironically as I type that, I'm being spattered with water from a leak in the roof).

Certain plot elements of the movie were predictable, but the events that followed after took some directions I didn't expect, and at no point did the film feel forced or unreal. It pulls at the heartstrings, true, but it earns those pulls and does not get them through cheap manipulation, and that's a mark of a good film.

== SHORT SUBJECT ==

This month's short subject is The Kolaborator, a jolly romp through recent Serbian/Bosnian history. It centers around Goran, a soccer player who winds up being on a Serbian death squad, traveling the countryside, helping to murder innocent civilians, including children. As he goes about his missions he eventually runs into the soccer coach and things get a little tense.

The movie is nicely filmed, though the washed out colors in the murder scenes are a bit schmaltzy. Also, there doesn't seem to be much the movie is saying other than, "Genocide! Boy, that sucks, eh?" Still, it was interesting and worth seeing.

Don't let the subtitles or the Norwegian origin scare you.
This is an excellent movie. Worth every minute and the effort.

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 17 reviews  4.1 out of 5 stars