Saving the self: The Woodsman, Il y a longtemps que je t’aime

Arthi V   | Movies, People, Talking-Points | March 5, 2009 at 9:27 pm         Print

The Woodsman
Language: English
Director : Nicole Kassell (This is her debut)
Writing Credits:
Play : Steven Fetcher (Couldn’t get much info about this writer)
Screenplay: Steven Fetcher and Nicole Kassell

Il y a longtemps que je t’aime
Language: French
Director: Philippe Claudel
Writer: Philippe Claudel

It took me to watch ‘Il y a longtemps que je t’aime (Il y a …from now on) to get to The Woodsman, a film I have with me since some time but for some reason that I’m unable to elucidate now was postponing to see.

Both the films have a thematic commonality – children as victims of crimes committed by adults who are products of seemingly balanced backgrounds.
Il y a longtemps que je t’aime has a mother spending 15 years in prison for killing her six-year-old son.
The Woodsman is a story of a forty-five year old man convicted of abusing little girls. A pedophile. Little would be from about nine to about thirteen / fourteen year olds. Result – serving 12 years in prison.

The mother is Juliette Fontaine, played by Kristin Scott Thomas.
The middle-aged man is Walter, enacted by Kevin Bacon.
Both the films begin when the convicts are released from prison. On parole. What life has to offer to them once out, how they deal with it, how they handle their inner thoughts and feelings about what they had done then and finally whether they are able to re-build their lives is what the stories are about.
Obviously the treatments to the approach of the narrations are like on two parallel trajectories, but the first one made me feel so manipulated while the other just made me just think about what will happen next? After the end credits began to roll. And then I felt that whatever a film says in its premise, you never know whats in store until you’ve seen it for yourself.

When Juliette is out of prison, she is welcomed into younger sister Lea’s home. A small happy family – husband, two adopted kids and a loving father-in-law – Juliette is just immune to the positivism around her. 15 years of isolation, family and husband having already denounced her and with no one by her side, she has come home to nothing and noone. All she has is her unsettled mind and is wrapped is her past. Its in her pale lifeless grey eyes, its in her expressionless stern face, its in her silences, its in her reluctance to interact. The niggling question for the viewer is ‘how could she’? why? how? Well, the story has decided to open up at its own pace and what I get is a slow unraveling of the character called Juliette is. And about her deed. Its done superbly. It seriously left me asking for more. What exactly had happened? Lea goes all out to make her sister comfortable in her new environ, much to her husband’s discomfort. After all how can a murderer of a kid can stay with them where there are two young ones already. Lea doesn’t look at it this way at all. For her, its her only chance to get to know her sister and the past. A teenager when Juliette goes to jail, she is forcefully estranged from her by her parents.
So from small mundane talk, going out with her and their friends, involving her with her kids, Lea does all for her sister to come back. To her. To life. But Juliette is on her own. Always has been. We barely get a glimpse into her past. The director doesn’t allow that at all. Instead Philippe just focuses on how the protagonist will do it. It was really discomforting. Knowing it. Yet barely knowing anything at all. Added on to this was Juliette’s inability to let herself be at peace. A mix of being remorse, sad, angry, and doomed all lingered in her mannerisms. What then is in store, I thought. Till the first hint was dropped on me. And then slowly the build-up began to crumble. I could uderstand the possibilities now. And it seemed to be getting further and further away from the premise. From what had be told. This happens when Juliette gets a job as a secretary in an hospital. How’s the job shes asked. Afterall its not an unfamiliar a place to her. I could then build the happenings of the past. It does then get on that familiar track. And one question after another starts raising its head in the viewers mind. How can anyone not know? Her own husband? Parents? Its nearly impossible for Juliette to do what she did without a soul unaware of the circumstances. It didn’t seem like what it was made out to be. Then her sister gets a photograph of the boy, a letter and all fall into place. The confrontation between the two sisters, the break-down and then the acceptance. Easy and not plausible. A plummet after the superb build-up. To think of it now I feel all that I saw till the knowing bit by bit was like another story. An unpleasant one but a thoroughly engaging one. Where the answers wouldn’t be easy. But I was given the easy way out. With only doubts in my head.

l y a longtemps que je t’aime. Its been long that I loved you. For me it was Juliette telling herself that. It doesn’t matter much now. Acting wise, Kristin Scott Thomas is a revelation as Juliette. She is unique. The delicate looking Elsa Zylberstein as Lea was an apt complement to KST. Rest were ably cast. Even though I dont quite like it now, I dont regret watching it. KST the reason. But yet….

And after this came The Woodsman. The film that slowly tightened its grip around me with every passing scene. No, there is build-up here but a gentle yet ruthless de-layering of Walter’s psyche. The movie opens with Walter moving into his new job and new place after his sentence in prison. Its being typed for me onscreen while Walter is getting to know whats in store. At the outset, Walter’s silences, refusal to mingle with others and constant looking out of his apartment window that overlooked a playground, seems like he is on a big-time guilt ridden trip. Trip that is just about his past. He here. Mind there. If only. A layer peeled. He is still looking at kids. Not with guilt but…Sessions with his therapist, his thoughts spoken aloud to us all reveal that he still is on the same path. He watches the kids from his home. He also sees another man at the play area watching them. He knows. Battling with his own urge of going back into the past again he vainly tries to justify why a young boy gets into he car with that man. ‘Because he wants to’ writes Walter desperately in his journal. ‘He wants to’. A layer off. Yet I am not able to completely grasp to what extent is he in there. Its when he tells the therapist finally what his idea of being normal is. When he is able to talk to a young girl and have no perverse thoughts in his head. Thats when you realize what a sick man he is. At one level Walter is desperately trying to move on and improve himself yet he feels its futile. He is what he is. A pedophile. The scenes when he travels in the bus from work. Young school girls in here. The look on his face when he stares at them then creeps one out. A girl just brushes past him ahead. He doesn’t do or say anything but the tightening of his jaw his stiffened body just gives all away.
What can then happen to such a man? He does get a chance to start from scratch but is he willing to re-build his life? Its another thing that the people around him, once they know, make his life much more despicable. So its easy to go back then right? Thats what Walter does. Takes the bus and follows a girl to the nature’s park. You cant think when you see this. Its loathsome. And with Kevin Bacon as Walter it makes it worse because he has never been the conventional hero kind and playing such a complex role isnt quite a ‘whoa’. So expecting the worst is only natural. Then Nicole takes it from here. What happens then just leaves one at a loss. Not quite expected yet doesnt quite fill one with hope. Or so I felt.

For a directorial and writing debut, Nicole is amazing. Her understanding of how to personify torment, mental sickness, perversity, helplessness is just brilliant. Kyra Sedgwick as Walter’s co-worker and love interest is good but made me wonder why is it that only an abused victim can empathise with an abuser. Why couldn’t have she been normal? Then what? But this is just an off-track. Its ok. Mos Def as the sergeant who needles Walter intermittently and Benjamin Bratt as his bro-in-law are fine. But its Kevin Bacon who is simply marvelous as Walter. Watch his grimaces, his empty eyes, his twitches, his silences, his attempts at tearing himself apart, its Walter born just as the story called for. Its top-notch acting here.

The Woodsman is a film that will linger on even after its over. And that is just where it succeeds. And to think of it that I hadn’t watched it till now.