The Childhood of a Leader (2015)
Country: GB/FR/HUN/US/BEL
Technical: col/1.66:1 115m
Director: Brady Corbet
Cast: Bérénice Bejo, Liam Cunningham, Yolande Moreau, Stacy Martin, Robert Pattinson, Tom Sweet
Synopsis:
The son of an American diplomat and his European wife, come to help negotiate the Treaty of Versailles, shows disquieting signs of malice and megalomania, and proves his future mettle by first dominating his parents' household.
Review:
Propelled by motoric strings in its opening and closing pages, this grippingly measured and deliberate case study of a fictional dictator's coming of age is based on a Sartre short story and recalls Haneke's The White Ribbon in its evocation of adults totally out of their depth, even as they attempt to clean up the last mess. In its careful inclusion of others only too happy to accede to the whims of a disobedient infant (e.g. the maid), it also comments on the acquiescence of peoples to the rise of their adult selves. The film commits the one unforgivable sin of failing to make clear the name of the Damien-like child, thus making the final twist utterly perplexing to many audiences, but this only partly detracts from the cleverness of grafting an imagined possible future onto a historical past in order to talk about the present.
Country: GB/FR/HUN/US/BEL
Technical: col/1.66:1 115m
Director: Brady Corbet
Cast: Bérénice Bejo, Liam Cunningham, Yolande Moreau, Stacy Martin, Robert Pattinson, Tom Sweet
Synopsis:
The son of an American diplomat and his European wife, come to help negotiate the Treaty of Versailles, shows disquieting signs of malice and megalomania, and proves his future mettle by first dominating his parents' household.
Review:
Propelled by motoric strings in its opening and closing pages, this grippingly measured and deliberate case study of a fictional dictator's coming of age is based on a Sartre short story and recalls Haneke's The White Ribbon in its evocation of adults totally out of their depth, even as they attempt to clean up the last mess. In its careful inclusion of others only too happy to accede to the whims of a disobedient infant (e.g. the maid), it also comments on the acquiescence of peoples to the rise of their adult selves. The film commits the one unforgivable sin of failing to make clear the name of the Damien-like child, thus making the final twist utterly perplexing to many audiences, but this only partly detracts from the cleverness of grafting an imagined possible future onto a historical past in order to talk about the present.
Country: GB/FR/HUN/US/BEL
Technical: col/1.66:1 115m
Director: Brady Corbet
Cast: Bérénice Bejo, Liam Cunningham, Yolande Moreau, Stacy Martin, Robert Pattinson, Tom Sweet
Synopsis:
The son of an American diplomat and his European wife, come to help negotiate the Treaty of Versailles, shows disquieting signs of malice and megalomania, and proves his future mettle by first dominating his parents' household.
Review:
Propelled by motoric strings in its opening and closing pages, this grippingly measured and deliberate case study of a fictional dictator's coming of age is based on a Sartre short story and recalls Haneke's The White Ribbon in its evocation of adults totally out of their depth, even as they attempt to clean up the last mess. In its careful inclusion of others only too happy to accede to the whims of a disobedient infant (e.g. the maid), it also comments on the acquiescence of peoples to the rise of their adult selves. The film commits the one unforgivable sin of failing to make clear the name of the Damien-like child, thus making the final twist utterly perplexing to many audiences, but this only partly detracts from the cleverness of grafting an imagined possible future onto a historical past in order to talk about the present.