"Four people, four walls and a lot of dialogue"

Title: Carnage

Year: 2011

Genre: Comedy, Drama

Director: Roman Polanski

Writer: Yasmina Reza (based on the play by: "Le Dieu du carnage"), Yasmina Reza, Roman Polanski (writer by)

Runtime: 80min

Cast: Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet, Christoph Waltz, John C. Reilly

Produc.: SBS Productions, Constantin Film Produktion, SPI Film Studio, Versátil Cinema, Zanagar Films, France 2 Cinéma, Canal+, CinéCinéma, France Télévisions, Polski Instytut Sztuki, Filmowej, Wild Bunch

Budget: $25 million approx.

One day in a park, because of a dispute between children, Zachary Cowan (Elvis Polansky) hits Ethan Longstreet (Eliot Berger) in the face with a stick, taking out two of his teeth. After the incident, Zachary's parents decide to visit Ethan´s parents to make it up as civilized adults. Except that for none of them will be easy to keep that so polite attitude.

Carnage is the title of this film, in which two eleven year olds are just an excuse for us to see their parents face each other. The hit scene is served to as a first course, after the opening credits, but is shown to us from a distance, through a static camera and in a barely chopped, open frame, from which we see the action that matters, in broad strokes.

In the next scene we get to meet the two couples (Michael and Penelope Longstreet, and Alan and Nancy Cowan) that will occupy the screen for the rest of the film, these, played by John C. Rilley, Jodie Foster and by Christoph Waltz and Kate Winslet, respectively. Specifically speaking, Alan and Nancy have been those who decided to stop by the Longstreet´s place to show how civilized they are in response to the incident their son took part in.

The truth is, that I have never been a big fan of Polanski, and in fact this is only the second movie I have seen of this filmmaker, something that leaves me with very few tools at the time of reviewing his work. However, I will take the boldness to assert that, wether this man is the genius people talk about (and he probably is), I regret having to point out that I honestly could not find any trace of that talent, in the approach that he gave to this film. I think Polanski has committed a serious blunder in his vision of this movie.

The thing goes this way: In every movie we are located in terms of time and space, we are introduced to the corresponding characters and explain what the conflict is. Needless to say there is no story without a conflict. However, for this case, one will notice that is not even the conflict that matters to the director, and instead he shows us that what has fascinated him was the idea of ​​having four people stuck in the same room during the course of 80 minutes. This was the challenge that Polanski set out to solve, which ended up forcing him to find some way in which tying up four actors to work within four walls would be appealing, with a previous issue to resolve, designed only as an excuse, and whose resolution, either for better or for worse, was never of significance.

So, here the question. Once one has seen about 15 or 20 minutes of the movie, and has begun to notice that something strange is going on in terms of the space (because it seems that the visiting couple has been magnetized to the department), one could begin to worry about the enclosure of the characters being more important than the plot.

I will stop here a second to make a brief parenthesis, because I also want to be fair to Polanski. It would be wrong to say that in his work he has done "all bad" because it is not like that. With Carnage he has been able to show us an excellent ability to display certain, very interesting aspects of the human behavior, through dialogues and viewpoints that are fairly well handle, and where he gives us the possibility to find out about what humans hide from others, that, that is restricted by the social barriers of our psychology. This, thats seems very complicated, I explain it in other words: Polanski shows very accurately how people is in reallity, when they speak their minds. And I close the parenthesis.

Back to my eariler point, and for those who have had the opportunity to see The Man from Earth (2007), you will recall that it also took place almost entirely in one room, in which a group of profesors was engaged to discussing, whether or not one of them was actually an immortal human being, born in the days of cavemen. This movie referred to several moments in the history of mankind, but always to promptly focus in that one of the teachers claimed to be a lot more older than his peers. That is, that the question to be solved by the other teachers was, what is commonly called "conflict". In this case: several skeptical teachers, refusing to believe they were in the presence of Mr. John Oldman, an ancient being. And so us, viewers, would follow the film until the last minute to find out the truth about this insane or liar fellow.

Another very clear example is 12 Angry Men (1957) by Sidney Lumet. Those who have seen it, will remember that it took place 99.9% in a jury´s deliberation room, where 12 individuals were to define the fate of a boy, ruling among all if the boy would be o not, declared guilty. In this film the conflict was quite clear from the first minute, and probably no one had wondered if they would or wouldn´t leave the room, because one was too attuned to the very development of the situation, of how the opinion of each of the present was changing or showing evidence of doubt, second to second. Then it is clear that the walls surrounding this group, little mattered, rather than to know where the scene was taking place.

Then, if one jump from 12 Angry Men to Carnage, ends up understanding that little really matters if the parents of the child offender will have their kid to apologize, or how the situation be resolved. Which leads to, that after a while, the discussion regarding the children becomes terribly boring, because we know that we will not see their kids making it up, that we will not witness a scene of serious dialogue between parents and children, in which they reflect. By contrast, basically what we are going to see is two couples trying by all means to stay calm and be respectful, but at the same time feeling offended, insulted or attacked, and then responding to these verbal assaults in an increasingly worst way. But no matter how much this could continue, how deep could they come to discuss, or how much, more or less, everyone could remain calm, because they would never actually come to a "conflict resolution", as this is secondary. Polanski has taken this film to experience with certain aspects of human behavior, so that when we leave the theater, we won´t yet know what was of the aggression in the park. Instead, this director has indeed managed to show us how he was perfectly able to lead four people to the edge and make one to get drunk, another to throw up, or that a third raise his voice and shout and insult another. But as to have an argument... From that, nothing. When we leave the cinema room, what are we going to say we saw? A film about four people fighting in a living room. No more than that. Four people talking about their children's behavior, either to defend or admit their mistakes. But to then go to other issues, talk about problems in Africa, criticize each other's ways of dealing with life, and end up stressed out. Them, stressed, and us, bored.

My rating: 3/10

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