Winter’s Bone
We recently got Netflix, which is letting films expire yet again, so I canceled my MUBI subscription. It took over 20 days for me to get bored of MUBI. Unsurprisingly, when I get to watch a movie on Netflix, I typically enjoy it more than your average MUBI film.
“Winter’s Bone” got marked as expiring soon, so I finally decided to watch it. I didn’t really know much about the film and the poster also didn’t look inspiring. (For a similar reason, I have never seen “The Road”.) But Gorp saw it and said it was good. It so happens that even when a film is not amongst his absolute favorites, I would typically like it.
I learned that the film is classified as neo-noir, similarly to “Brick”. I actually thought that there were many parallels. Both films are strangely stylish even though they are set in a rather ugly environment, both are strongly focused on a very strong main character and start with the disappearance of a person and a mystery asking to be solved. While said mystery is not entirely solved in the case of “Winter’s Bone”, the structure is still strangely similar. Just like Brendan, Ree has to go confront people who she dislikes and who are pretty much rotten down to the core, get help, get beaten up and poke around in the drug business. Maybe she is a little less clever than Brendan with his smooth detective work, but she makes up for it in perseverance and character strength. “Winter’s Bone” had much less story, if you want, but I liked how the mystery got revealed slowly and quite subtly.
As you can imagine, I was also mesmerized by the style of the film. Everything looks so incredibly grey and bleak, yet the main character is strangely beautiful and looks awesome even when she is bundled up in cold winter clothing. Jennifer Lawrence definitely deserved all the praise for her acting; in fact, I am now interested in seeing more of her performances. (Unfortunately, my dislike for “The Hunger Games” still persists.)
The internet, or rather the Imdb forums, are full of people who write about the film. It seems to be the kind of thing that lots of people have watched, and everybody and their mother critiques it. Several people commented on how realistic the film is in portraying rural life, and perhaps that is the aspect I liked most about it. Certainly life is hard for the main character and everything looks awfully bleak, yet there is hope to be found: in her neighbor who takes care of her horse, in the best friend who she adores, and finally in the scene where her siblings hold little chicken in their hands. (Cute!) If that is not a sign for a hopeful future, then what is? As a foot note, I think it is noteworthy that the disappeared father actually loved his family and was not just a drunken meth cook who left them willingly. There is so much subtle goodness to be found in this film.
Overall, “Winter’s Bone” was a pleasant surprise, an I wish I had seen it together with Pip. Perhaps I would even want to re-watch and re-evaluate it some day as well.