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The Clearing
Yesterday I saw the Clearing, a film by Pieter Jan Brugge. It is a nice, unusual film that builds up quietly, one of those films that you happen to see on TV, you sit down a little just to figure out what's happening and you end up sitting and watching it till the end.
The acting is fabulous. Robert Redford plays a successful businessman, the kidnapped victim and the husband in a marriage that has seen better days despite the love that is still there. The character is a powerful one, Wayne Hayes is an intelligent and resourceful man, not used to loosing, quick in assessing others. He thinks he has Arnold figured out right from the beginning. And he has, but not totally. Arnold, a great creation of William Dafoe, the kidnapper, is a loser and his body, his face, his hands, everything in him say so. His dreams of a different life and of a different personality make him choose extreme actions that will be hard for him to sustain. I have never liked Dafoe as much as with Arnold. And finally, Helen Mirren who plays Wayne's wife, a self-conscious and self-controlled suburb wife, striving to keep her posture and to keep life under control.
A lesson in acting, a quiet, intelligent film to watch and watch again. A small surprise at the end, enough to make us think back on the film, on their lives, on our lives. All those words unsaid.