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MovieMeditation presents...
HIS FILM DIARY 2015
total movie count ........... viewing day count
221 .......................... 253
__________________________
September 10th
—— 2011 ——
T A K E__S H E L T E R
—— drama ——
REWATCH
There is a storm coming like nothing you've ever seen,
and not a one of you is prepared for it...
This review contains spoilers
I always appreciate and admire films that attempt to visualize spiritual or nonphysical objects and present them in an either metaphorical or literal understanding, which then forms a wider and vivid image or just a small fragmented idea in the mind of the audience, ultimately helping them understand said object. Sometimes the film will force you to think a certain way, other times it leaves things open for the audience to answer. But no matter which way these things are depicted, it is always an interesting experience of cinematic experimentation. ‘Take Shelter’, as directed by Jeff Nichols, tackles the terrifying realities of paranoid schizophrenia, which we are never seriously able to see from a subjective standpoint unless we actually suffer from it ourselves. I have seen plenty of people in cinema undertake the subject of sickness, both mental and physical, which leads to some interesting individual approaches from countless different directors. There are some who take on the sickness in an informative and factual way, while others prefer the more freeform fictionalized approach...
In many ways, ‘Take Shelter’ balances between both of these approaches, which may be the reason for the elevated feel of realism despite its slightly surreal nature. The film largely focuses on an everyday ordinary family, who struggle to survive because of some fairly common financial problems, which have started to become more prominent due to their daughters progressive hearing problems. This extremely earthbound evolution and depiction of the family and their misfortunes obviously encourages the audience to care, while also adding some much needed weight to the plot, thereby easing our very understanding of Curtis’ continuous progression of sickness. All of the hallucinations and haunting visions appear a lot more real to us, which is further enforced by the way of which this dreamlike element is being worked into the plot – slowly blurring the lines between reality and vision, slowly dragging us deeper into the mental state of Curtis, slowly finding out what kind of character Curtis actually is and what he is slowly but surely evolving into.
‘Take Shelter’ is a fantastic film, which never fails to haunt your mind with its distressing and anxious imagery in which the depiction of dreams and visions puts you in the place of the main character and what he is dealing with. Combined with Michael Shannon’s unsettling performance of carefully measured mannerisms and a gradually collapsing mentality, we are unwillingly invited into this terrifying state of mind, where we are shown what brings him to certain decisions and why he follows through with them. We might not fully understand those decisions, but Shannon’s performance makes us relate and sympathize with him as well as his surroundings. The ending is absolutely frightening yet fatally fitting for the film and the story it wants to tell, embodying a form of acceptance, while realizing, understanding and ultimately overcoming the oncoming complications in life. We quietly observe Curtis and his family within their caring comfort and coming closure, we see his daughter finally discovering and recognizing “the storm” in Curtis and we notice his wife giving him a slight but significant glance in his direction. In the end, we may just be a random spectator looking from a distance, but just like the family, we know it, we feel it and we acknowledge it.
+
__________________________
HIS FILM DIARY 2015
total movie count ........... viewing day count
221 .......................... 253
__________________________
September 10th
—— 2011 ——
T A K E__S H E L T E R
—— drama ——
REWATCH
There is a storm coming like nothing you've ever seen,
and not a one of you is prepared for it...
This review contains spoilers
I always appreciate and admire films that attempt to visualize spiritual or nonphysical objects and present them in an either metaphorical or literal understanding, which then forms a wider and vivid image or just a small fragmented idea in the mind of the audience, ultimately helping them understand said object. Sometimes the film will force you to think a certain way, other times it leaves things open for the audience to answer. But no matter which way these things are depicted, it is always an interesting experience of cinematic experimentation. ‘Take Shelter’, as directed by Jeff Nichols, tackles the terrifying realities of paranoid schizophrenia, which we are never seriously able to see from a subjective standpoint unless we actually suffer from it ourselves. I have seen plenty of people in cinema undertake the subject of sickness, both mental and physical, which leads to some interesting individual approaches from countless different directors. There are some who take on the sickness in an informative and factual way, while others prefer the more freeform fictionalized approach...
In many ways, ‘Take Shelter’ balances between both of these approaches, which may be the reason for the elevated feel of realism despite its slightly surreal nature. The film largely focuses on an everyday ordinary family, who struggle to survive because of some fairly common financial problems, which have started to become more prominent due to their daughters progressive hearing problems. This extremely earthbound evolution and depiction of the family and their misfortunes obviously encourages the audience to care, while also adding some much needed weight to the plot, thereby easing our very understanding of Curtis’ continuous progression of sickness. All of the hallucinations and haunting visions appear a lot more real to us, which is further enforced by the way of which this dreamlike element is being worked into the plot – slowly blurring the lines between reality and vision, slowly dragging us deeper into the mental state of Curtis, slowly finding out what kind of character Curtis actually is and what he is slowly but surely evolving into.
‘Take Shelter’ is a fantastic film, which never fails to haunt your mind with its distressing and anxious imagery in which the depiction of dreams and visions puts you in the place of the main character and what he is dealing with. Combined with Michael Shannon’s unsettling performance of carefully measured mannerisms and a gradually collapsing mentality, we are unwillingly invited into this terrifying state of mind, where we are shown what brings him to certain decisions and why he follows through with them. We might not fully understand those decisions, but Shannon’s performance makes us relate and sympathize with him as well as his surroundings. The ending is absolutely frightening yet fatally fitting for the film and the story it wants to tell, embodying a form of acceptance, while realizing, understanding and ultimately overcoming the oncoming complications in life. We quietly observe Curtis and his family within their caring comfort and coming closure, we see his daughter finally discovering and recognizing “the storm” in Curtis and we notice his wife giving him a slight but significant glance in his direction. In the end, we may just be a random spectator looking from a distance, but just like the family, we know it, we feel it and we acknowledge it.
+
__________________________