La zona oscura

I went to see Tim Roth's directorial debut "War Zone" to get insight into a deeply talented actor, much as that's a reason to see Sean Penn-directed movies.

"War Zone" is a cross between "Once Were Warriors," the visceral NZ movie on domestic violence, and "Wuthering Heights."

It's visually stunning, painterly, as the dysfunctional family is set in almost Edward Hopper-still life isolation on the moors, surrounded only by the elements--lots of rain, sea and relentless wind--with the characters mostly silent you sure hear that howling wind instead of conversation-- with an occasional human being staring them down.

While the family's close-knit physical intimacy was realized in an almost 17th century way of togetherness, I'm not sure the abuse was, as I thought most incest more pedophiliac than this. So the universality of any message is lost, other than the lesson that family members are love-tropic and take it any way they can get it with some fine lines dividing functional from dysfunctional.

If Bergman did an abuse movie, it might look like this. Excellent acting all around, though as usual some working-class Brit accents can be hard to decipher by an American. (originally written 12/31/1999)