Carnage France, Germany, Poland 2011 – 79min.
Movie Rating
Carnage
Two couples try to talk things through after their boys fight in a park. By Roman Polanski.
An 11-year-old boy hits another with a stick in a New York park, taking out two teeth in the process. The parents of both boys decide to meet and talk things through. They are the Longstreets: Michael is a salesman who goes all out to take care of his nervous wife Penelope, a politically correct progressive intellectual who assuages her liberal guilt by writing about the tragic situation in Darfour. And the Cowens: Nancy is a chic and conservative hysteric frustrated by her husband Alan, a mean and cynical lawyer attached night and day to his Blackberry. What starts off as polite conversation soon turns nasty and falls apart, first as the couples stand up for their sons, then as the women take sides against their husbands, finally devolving into an ideological battle of morals and egotism in the western world...
Carnage is 79 minutes of happiness by Roman Polanski, who once again explores the human soul in all its bleakness as he did in the excellent Bitter Moon, but this time with more lightness and humor. Although Polanski's talent does not need more proof, the success of this sarcastic comedy is due to its source material, Yasmine Reza's play "God of Carnage".
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Kleiton
Posted 12 years ago
An intriguing movie. Foster and Winslet were amazing!
kc44b
Posted 12 years ago
Not sure what this movie is about, but.... It seems like a commentary on the disconnectedness of our lives--even these two not-dissimilar couples (white, well-off, NYC, Brooklyn, professional) cannot communicate with one another. There is only one character with a supposed sense of morality (Foster) and her politically-sensitive values are mocked by the film, the object of a vomiting attack (Winslet).
In the very beginning of the film, the incident takes place in a park and in the top right hand corner of the screen, almost lost in the haze of a cloudy day is the American flag flying on the top of one of the stancheons of the Brooklyn Bridge. It's there like a shadow--this is (or "was") America. Look what it has become. Just like Congress cannot seem to do anything significant, these adults can't come together to guide their children to a reconciliation of a playground incident. It really is pitiful. Vomit on an art book. Vomit on an expensive suit, stench. Covered by cheap cologne, which itself stinks. It all stinks. But being myself from the NYC area, I really could relate to the film and it's everything I wanted to leave behind moving here.… Show more
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