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| Director Tim Roth |
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| novelist Alexander Stuart |
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| Roth with his lead actress Lara Belmont |
THE WAR ZONE A Great Britain Italy (99 mi) 1999 ‘Scope d: Tim Roth
The commitment you have to make as a director is far greater than the commitment you have to make as an actor so the material you choose must be something that really matters, otherwise it's a waste of time. And that applies whether it matters in a dramatic piece or a comedy. —Tim Roth
A film like this would simply not be made today, financing would be inconceivable, and the public would be morally outraged, finding the subject matter objectionable, revealing just how much the world has shifted to the political right since then, as the contents are gut-wrenching and profoundly disturbing, the only film ever directed by Tim Roth and it’s a harrowing experience, creating a searingly realistic portrait of family incest, not relegated to the background as it is in most films, instead using a no holds barred approach, putting it front and center, making this one of the most difficult watches in cinema, even 25-years after it was made. Contributing to the difficulty is the unflinching approach Roth brings to making the film, an adaptation of Alexander Stuart’s 1989 novel (also writing the screenplay), which was out of print when the film was released, winner of the prestigious Whitbread Prize, chosen as Britain’s Best Novel of the Year when it was first published, but was instantly stripped of the award amid controversy among the judges, with one describing it as “repellent” and threatening to resign from the panel if Stuart received the award, due to the novel’s stark and uncompromising portrayal of incest. Part of what contributed to the author’s grim depiction was the loss of his young 5-year old son from cancer, leaving a devastating hole in his life that could simply not be replaced, bringing much of that personal anguish to the novel. In a bittersweet note, the film is actually dedicated to Stuart’s lost child. What makes this film particularly compelling is Roth is himself a sexual abuse survivor, having been abused by his paternal grandfather from childhood until his early teen years, a revelation not disclosed until he started an 18-month promotional tour for the film, while it was another 17 years before identifying the abuser, also discovering that his own father had been abused by the same man. His distinctly personalized approach was to confront the audience with an uncompromising, emotionally complex film about abuse, intentionally exposing them to the same blistering pain, told from the point of view of the children who are emotionally scarred and psychologically damaged by actions inflicted from an exploitive parent, hounded by the way it plays upon guilt and shame, continually gnawing on old wounds, shot with poetic moments of tenderness that make the scenes of sexual violence all the more horrifying, not only heartbreaking and quietly devastating, but an indescribable human tragedy. There’s a sense of total isolation and alienation in the surroundings, with long periods of oppressive silence that contribute to the overall mood of despair. Adding to the interest is the brilliant casting, finding Ray Winstone, Tilda Swinton, and Colin Farrell (only seen briefly) very early in their careers, though Swinton doesn’t have much of a presence, having just given birth to twins a month earlier, where her postpartum body was utilized, with a naked breast exposed, while a trimmed down Winstone had just made Gary Oldman’s NIL BY MOUTH (1997), another in-your-face, emotionally bruising film about alcoholism and domestic abuse that is filled with profanity, a particular specialty of Winstone, using it to a devastating effect in this film. Winstone and Swinton are the two parents, known only as Dad and Mum, introducing two newcomers with no acting experience as the children, Lara Belmont as 18-year old Jessie, supposedly discovered while shopping at a flea market, working at a Burger King in London at the time, and Freddie Cunliffe as 15-year old Tom, reportedly accompanying a friend to the audition, largely seen through the awkward eyes of Tom, defined by his blank expression, carrying with him an overwhelming despair, often seen wearing a hoodie, usually looking glum or indifferent, a frustrated teenager to be sure, yet seeing the world through a child’s eyes makes all the difference. Belmont is utterly phenomenal in her role, bringing a surprising amount of wounded depth, as the film would never have the same level of impact without her, becoming the focal center of the picture, though the rocky shorelines of the rugged north Devon coastline continually intervene, resembling a classical David Lean landscape, like the picturesque images of the Irish coast in Ryan's Daughter (1970), providing a natural force. The surrounding grasslands never looked greener, shrouded in everpresent overcast skies and constant downpours of rain, a relentlessly grim outlook contributing to an overall mood of wrenching despair, beautifully shot by a young Seamus McGarvey, capturing the rare poetic beauty of a Scottish coast in Alan Rickman’s THE WINTER GUEST (1997), going on to shoot THE HOURS (2002), a decidedly somber Virginia Woolf adaptation, and Lynne Ramsay’s highly stylized We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011).
Following in the footsteps of Roth’s first acting experiences on British television in Alan Clarke’s MADE IN BRITAIN (1983) and Mike Leigh’s MEANTIME (1983), this film was even funded by Channel Four, a British TV station that also produced Mike Leigh’s first television film, and while Roth’s film remains open to his experience and interpretation, it may have some therapeutic value for sexual abuse survivors, exposing a hidden evil, with some screenings partnering with RAINN | The nation's largest anti-sexual violence organization, though it doesn’t vilify, and remains ambiguous in terms of sympathy, as everyone in the family is clearly impacted. The Bideford, North Devon location is a popular holiday beach destination in the summer, a place where the Roth family actually vacationed, but the director does not have fond memories of the place, as it’s one of the prime locations where his abuse took place, so they chose to set the film in winter, where the bleak, cold, coastal landscape resonates visually and emotionally, with coldness translating to the essence of incest, where Roth’s cold recollections mirror the chilliness depicted in the film, never indulging in moralizing, yet what’s also important is that the material is in no way sensationalized. Changing the family’s social status from upper middle class in the book to a working class family, closer to his own roots, Roth aligns himself with other British social realists like Ken Loach and Mike Leigh, but especially Alan Clarke, whose primary medium was television, reminiscent of the kitchen sink realism of the late 50’s and early 60’s. Shot in long dark takes which powerfully suggest Tom’s growing claustrophobia in the family “war zone,” the film reveals his growing insecurities, angered at having just moved from London to this isolated coastal cottage, while his mother is also about to give birth to another child. In a shocking development, we are witness to her water breaking, a sign she is going into labor, where they all pack into a car together with the mother screaming in pain, resulting in a horrible accident on the road, leaving them all bloodied afterwards, but everyone survives, including a new baby girl delivered from the wreckage. This accident foreshadows everything that follows, with Roth choosing to make the film nearly entirely non-verbal, a radical departure from the first-person narrative of the novel, which gets so wrapped up in Tom’s existential demeanor that his sister Jessie remains engulfed in mystery, yet what transpires is an accentuation of a tense mood and an eerie atmosphere, with a pensive musical score by Simon Boswell. There is a sense of alienation and uncertainty within this family, tightly compressed into claustrophobic space in their rural home, far away from anything, with no visible neighbors, where so much is told through glances or gazes at one another. Dad is almost always on the phone off to the side of the frame or completely out of the picture, apparently fixated by his only contact with the outside world, repeating the same catch phrases, asking how much a piece of antique furniture is worth and when he can meet a prospective buyer, where the established normalcy offers a stark contrast from the monstrosity of his acts, while Mum is the picture of denial, not suspecting anything, always lying still on the couch or fiddling with newborn Alice, even seen openly pumping breast milk, leaving her breast exposed afterwards in the presence of her family, like it’s no big deal. At one point Dad comes home late, tired and exhausted, with Mum rubbing a washcloth across his bare back in the sink, with the camera moving in and scrutinizing the back of his neck, while in another Jessie is awakened by Tom in the middle of the night, sitting up in bed completely topless, telling her brother, “You want everything to be nice and sweet, but it isn’t,” having no compulsion whatsoever to cover up, so half-naked bodies are routinely exposed within these tightly compressed rooms, hardly casual, more of a lingering sign that something is amiss. But this daily routine changes when Tom and his mother return home with groceries in a pouring rain, where the front door is always locked so they have a habit of running to the back, but he sees something that catches his eye, peering inside a window, eventually dropping his bags, stunned by what he sees (not shown to viewers), The War Zone (1999) by Tim Roth, Clip: Tom and his mum return home from the hospital - in the rain YouTube (1:56). Confronting his sister afterwards, he’s seen her in the bathtub with Dad, aghast at the family betrayal implications, yet she calmly brushes her hair, acting as if nothing has happened.
One evening the family visits a local pub, as Jessie introduces Tom to her friend Nick (Colin Farrell), who drives the three of them down to the beach where they build a fire, but the two abandon Tom for the rest of the night, leaving him desperately alone until she returns in the morning, facing the wrath of her father for being out all night, where he has to be held back from attacking his daughter. Tom reveals to his sister that he suspects she’s hiding something, her anguish increasingly visible, so when Dad supposedly goes off on a run, he follows, filled with suspicion, carrying with him a video camera, discovering an abandoned concrete war bunker at the top of a cliff, a wartime remnant explicitly designed for the film, where he witnesses Dad sodomizing Jessie against her will, crying for him to stop, an unvarnished, graphically austere depiction of the worst kind of human behavior, leaving nothing to the imagination, yet shocking in its own restraint, shown with a thorough detachment, revealing a morally reprehensible act of rape that sends chills down the spine. Completely repulsed and disgusted, Tom turns away, wandering over to the rocks and hurls his camera into the sea. Psychologists and counselors were on the set during the filming, cognizant of potentially scarring the young child actors, whose parents had read the script beforehand, so they knew what to expect, while Roth talked them through the emotions of the scenes, but something surprising occurred, as the sound man nearly ruined the bunker scene by crying into his microphone, while Winstone, according to Roth, found it so upsetting that he nearly left the production afterwards. Initially, Tom was insistent on blaming his sister, thinking she could put an end to this behavior, as if she was controlling the narrative, too young and naïve to realize she is clearly the victim of her father’s predatory acts, but having witnessed the horror with his own eyes, he grows more sympathetic towards Jessie, while fuming in anger at his father. When baby Alice is sent to the hospital with troubling signs, Tom warns his mother never to let his father anywhere near her, and not to trust him, but leaves when the medical team abruptly arrives to her room, leaving his mother searching for an explanation that never comes. When Dad gets wind of this at home, he confronts Tom who blurts out what he’s seen, his father sexually violating his own sister, with Dad erupting in anger as only Winstone can, going on a profanity-laden stream of non-stop invectives, calling his son a liar, blaming him for trying to break up the family, suggesting it’s all a figment of his sick imagination, where the F-word is every second or third word, even threatening to maim his own son, with Jessie crying throughout, arms over her head covering her ears, utterly distraught, as everything that was once considered safe is now in ruins. What ultimately transpires is tense, darkly disturbing, and open to interpretation, with no definitive answers, yet draws a clear distinction between reality and fantasy, actually veering into the horror genre, as this revolting criminal behavior has rarely been examined with this level of scrutiny. While this may seem high, FBI authorities estimate incest occurs in over 10 percent of American families, yet only 20 percent of these offenses are reported, largely because it is initiated by someone the child, usually a girl, loves and trusts, Incest - The Last Taboo (Part l) - Office of Justice Programs. “Shockingly it is estimated that more than 90 percent of all childhood sexual abuse is perpetrated by family members, friends of family members, or other individuals that children know,” Incest and its Prevalence in American Society | by Madelyn Joy, all of which suggests this is one of the few films that actually addresses this most shadowy of crimes,which can result in emotional indifference, as feelings can be driven out of victims, leading to a lifetime of unending despair without proper therapy. Premiering at Sundance, Roth won a Special Jury Prize at the Berlin Film Festival, while also invited to Director’s Fortnight at Cannes, which is rare when a film has previously screened in Europe. When the movie screened at the Toronto Film Festival, one viewer was so visibly upset that he shouted he couldn’t take any more, running for the exit, intercepted by Roth, who was in attendance, meeting him at the door, as something was likely triggered, and it took 20-minutes of intense conversation to calm the man down. It is no exaggeration to say the film is emotionally suffocating, offering no hint of relief, literally drowning in the trauma of the subject matter, imploring us to keep our eyes open.
