i know men like son (micheal shannon), boy (douglas ligon) and kid (barlow jacobs) in my own family. men who can't say what they feel, and when they finally say them, they do that with great violence, often unintentional. it used to annoy me when these men choose to be quiet than act on the issue plaguing our family the way i do - but then i begin to understand, that they are merely trying to contain their anger, doing their best to calm down and say not the wrong thing before taking any action.
else we have men like son and his brothers. their broken family and harsh childhood make them cling for one another for support - the brothers don't speak much, but they look out for one another to make up for the lack of words being said. their mother is estranged, as son speaks of her as the hateful woman who brought them up to hate their father and his other family. their father is a reformed alcoholic who left them behind for a new wife and new sons, so you know it is disaster when son and his brothers turn up at his funeral, spitting and reminding the new family what a vile man their father used to be. you can sense their anger at being abandoned; their life languishing in a dead end town, uneducated, unloved, unable to escape. they have no one who cares but the three of them. son had shotgun marks on his back, it was from protecting one of his younger siblings.
i don't know if many people appreciate this kind of story telling, because i must say this story touched me in places most movies hardly make an impact. i was looking for movies with micheal shannon after watching him in take shelter (2011), also directed by jeff nichols. i feel sorry for son and his brothers, and it is especially sorrowful to see bad blood from an older generation who hardly cares about them had son and his brothers wage a war against their step brothers. this movie is a character study excellently portrayed by shannon, ligon and jacobs; i like nichols' deliberate direction that lets the story unfold by implication. adam stone's cinematography shows a sleepy arkansas town that holds nothing for its residents, each day reminding them of the cruel realities that their life is wasting away and that there is no escaping it. the town is a prison, symbolic of the prison they live in their minds.
for people like son and his brothers - while there is no easy way out, the most obvious has got to be to just let go.
I think we often do boys a disservice by perpetuating this stiff upper lip machismo rule. We don't equip them with the vocabulary or the platform to express their feelings; we glorify violence and aggression as the male domain for expression.
ReplyDeleteWe need to teach them that it is okay to love gently and that clinging to pain is not strength, but a weakness.
And movies like this illustrate that, I think.
yeah they could have been better, productive people had they been cared for and grew up in an environment that fosters love and confidence. i think that was what son (micheal shannon's character) was most angry about, that he grew up not having a choice.
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