The Sweet Hereafter (film)

The Sweet Hereafter (The Sweet Hereafter ) is a two -time Academy Award - nominated drama film by Canadian director Atom Egoyan from the year 1997. It is based on the novel by Russell Banks. The drama varies the basic motif of the legend of the Pied Piper of Hamelin: the children a place to die in the wake of a leading figure, in this case at a bus driver.

Action

In the Canadian municipality of Sam Dent one day the school bus comes off the road, driving on a frozen lake, breaks and sinks. Only the driver Dolores and the oldest student Nicole Burnell survive. At a stroke, the church has lost almost all of their children. The father Billy Ansel, who had made ​​it a habit every day for a while herzufahren behind the bus while waving to his own children in the back seat of the bus, a helpless witness to this tragedy.

The grieving families receive a visit from a superficially occurring energetically as empathetic lawyer. Mitchell Stephens has made ​​it its mission to "give an anger towards" their pain and. He wants to represent and protect "in front of a battery of lawyers " on the other side who are only out to belittle the pain and suffering payments to parents. Hesitant to go just a few of embittered parents on the persistent persuasion of the lawyer. Quick is through telephone conversations of the lawyer with his daughter Zoe realizes that he himself has long since lost his drug-addicted daughter and struggles with his own anger and powerlessness. During a flight, he told a friend of his grueling fight to win back his daughter, but in the end all the effort was in vain.

Billy Ansel do not want to delve into a lengthy court hearing his pain and sorrow, and therefore boycotted Stephens work. He can convince Nicole, who then makes a false statement a successful claim impossible. The residents of the community prefer to deal with their grief together and, as before, to help each other.

Background

The film boasts wonderful landscape shots (some with helicopters ) snow-capped mountains, long quiet settings, and a gentle, poetic- musical background. The narrative voice of Nicole pervades the progress of the film as a red thread with the legend of the Pied Piper of Hamelin. The camera records close ups in an old picture book, while Nicole reads from Illustrations Kate Greenaway this the children of Billy Ansel as a bedtime story. Another level of meaning of the film deals with the unspoken question of how a functioning and harmonious coexistence is possible and how quickly can collapse it. Among other things, this will be clear in the contrast to the local "hippie " parents, Otto, particularly lovingly took care of her son. Here take hippies once no outsider in a community one, because they are respected by their neighbors, even if they are not churchgoers. The film's title alludes to what were allowed to see the children of Hamelin to miraculous in the mountain.

The song Courage by The Tragically Hip is sung both of these as well as the actress Sarah Polley.

It was recorded the film in the villages Merritt and Spences Bridge, British Columbia, in Stouffville, Ontario and Toronto.

Reviews

  • The magazine Cinema described the film as " painful drama, bitter as salutary " and a "masterpiece ".
  • Dirk Jasper Movie Encyclopedia: " The Sweet Hereafter 'is a moving film about loss and grief and the responsibility we all have for the fate of our children. "
  • Lexicon of international film: " An intense, haunting film about loss and suffering, which can be understood as a textbook in things about the vital work of mourning. Despite the moving subject, the very artificial style keeps the audience at the same time on a certain distance and allows him as a largely unemotional confrontation with existential questions of meaning. ( Cinema Tip of the Catholic Film Critics ) "
  • Andreas Kilb at the time: " The film combines dreams and tragedies of life with each other [ ... ] Despite its many advantages and flashbacks of his wild exchange between past, present and future of the narrative has, The Sweet Hereafter ' nothing confusing. The film is very clear, because he gives himself fully his characters. "
  • James Berardinelli: "Film can not be more powerful: A drama that shakes the soul, yet quite free from any trace of the manipulation, sentimentality or mawkishness. "

2003 created the Federal Agency for Civic Education in cooperation with numerous filmmakers a film canon of work in schools and took this movie in their list on.

Awards

The Sweet Hereafter received, among others, the following awards:

  • At the International Film Festival of Cannes 1997 awarded: Grand Prize of the Jury, FIPRESCI Prize of the International Critics, Prize of the Ecumenical Jury. Nominated for the Golden Palm.
  • The film received two nominations for the 1998 Academy Award: Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay.
  • 7 Genie Awards and nine nominations in 1997.
  • Independent Spirit Awards 1998: Best Foreign Language Film.
  • BSFC Award 1997: Best Supporting Actress.
  • Toronto International Film Festival in 1997 for Atom Egoyan.
  • Golden ear of Semana Internacional de Cine de Valladolid 1997.
  • National Board of Review 1997: Best acting performance of an ensemble.
  • The film was selected in 2004 at the Toronto International Film Festival at the third position in the list of the ten best Canadian films of all time.

DVD Release

  • The Sweet Hereafter. World Cinema Home Entertainment 2007
1997 in film Film score Jane Siberry Paul Sarossy 1997 Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or Academy Award for Best Director 70th Academy Awards Seminci Exotica (Film) Ararat (Film) Chloe (Film)
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