Last thoughts on Atonement
Jan. 18th, 2010 11:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
erastesOk – what I didn’t like about Atonement (I thought the photography was very beautiful, but as I say, it was filmed as “I’m going to win an Oscar for this” - i’ll need to read the book now to see if some of those images were in the book.) was that it didn’t—to me—have anything to do with Atonement. As I say, perhaps this was deliberate, and perhaps the title was entirely ironic, but (cut for spoilers)
Perhaps the fact that the characters of Cecilia and Robbie seemed like paper dolls was because that’s exactly what they were to Bryony – perhaps that’s deliberate? As I say, I’d need to read the book to get a fuller idea – it’s hard to get the author’s vision from a film because the director may be leading you down an entirely different path.
It was the appropriation that upset me—that somehow she thought that by inventing a fictional ending for them was in any way a substitute for 3 and a half years of prison as a child-molester.
I can understand why a child would have done what she did, children are good at doing things and then simply forgetting about them, so I’m not saying “evil child” – children can do the most appalling things, and if she had anything like the lifestyle that the Mitfords had for example, right and wrong were probably things she picked up by osmosis rather than anything else.
So she writes this book, where the characters behave and sound like paper dolls because that’s what she sees them as, characters that be shaped to suit an ending that absolves HER – because if they have a happy ending, then somehow her guilt can be razed. It’s no more than RL fanfic and just as intrusive and horribly wrong. But perhaps that’s actually the point. I can’t blame Bryony for Robbie and C’s deaths, because Robbie would have joined up anyway – and as a housekeeper’s son, no matter how well educated, he’d probably be a private. Perhaps C wouldn’t have died in Balham tube station because perhaps she’d still have been at home, but it’s more likely she would have been in London, or even at the front doing things, so she may have died. What essentially then, Bryony has (apart from sending a man to prison for something he didn’t do) is guilt over not managing to make things right with her sister, and not (as it seems) EVER owning up to what she did to the authorities. Getting adulation and TV exposure because of this is probably indicative of our society, rather than anything else. Granted Lola couldn’t have given evidence against Paul, but Bryony still should have made those statements.
Also, rehashing the entire thing using everyone’s real names means that probably (given the age of Bryony) that all the main characters were dead – so what’s the bloody point? Other than to upset the families left behind?
And finally – two points that I made in comments to my last post:
1. Who has a fountain ten foot deep?
2. I found it extremely contrived that Cecelia had to a) fill the vase with water herself, considering they had a billion servants and b) had to walk across the park about half a mile to the fountain to fill it up. No running water in that palace was there? (However these points may be explained in the book – perhaps she sees Robbie in the park and uses it as a pathetic excuse to go and talk to him)
However, it’s rare that a film makes me ruminate over finishing it for so long. I’ll get the book and see if that’s any different in essence.
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Perhaps the fact that the characters of Cecilia and Robbie seemed like paper dolls was because that’s exactly what they were to Bryony – perhaps that’s deliberate? As I say, I’d need to read the book to get a fuller idea – it’s hard to get the author’s vision from a film because the director may be leading you down an entirely different path.
It was the appropriation that upset me—that somehow she thought that by inventing a fictional ending for them was in any way a substitute for 3 and a half years of prison as a child-molester.
I can understand why a child would have done what she did, children are good at doing things and then simply forgetting about them, so I’m not saying “evil child” – children can do the most appalling things, and if she had anything like the lifestyle that the Mitfords had for example, right and wrong were probably things she picked up by osmosis rather than anything else.
So she writes this book, where the characters behave and sound like paper dolls because that’s what she sees them as, characters that be shaped to suit an ending that absolves HER – because if they have a happy ending, then somehow her guilt can be razed. It’s no more than RL fanfic and just as intrusive and horribly wrong. But perhaps that’s actually the point. I can’t blame Bryony for Robbie and C’s deaths, because Robbie would have joined up anyway – and as a housekeeper’s son, no matter how well educated, he’d probably be a private. Perhaps C wouldn’t have died in Balham tube station because perhaps she’d still have been at home, but it’s more likely she would have been in London, or even at the front doing things, so she may have died. What essentially then, Bryony has (apart from sending a man to prison for something he didn’t do) is guilt over not managing to make things right with her sister, and not (as it seems) EVER owning up to what she did to the authorities. Getting adulation and TV exposure because of this is probably indicative of our society, rather than anything else. Granted Lola couldn’t have given evidence against Paul, but Bryony still should have made those statements.
Also, rehashing the entire thing using everyone’s real names means that probably (given the age of Bryony) that all the main characters were dead – so what’s the bloody point? Other than to upset the families left behind?
And finally – two points that I made in comments to my last post:
1. Who has a fountain ten foot deep?
2. I found it extremely contrived that Cecelia had to a) fill the vase with water herself, considering they had a billion servants and b) had to walk across the park about half a mile to the fountain to fill it up. No running water in that palace was there? (However these points may be explained in the book – perhaps she sees Robbie in the park and uses it as a pathetic excuse to go and talk to him)
However, it’s rare that a film makes me ruminate over finishing it for so long. I’ll get the book and see if that’s any different in essence.
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Date: 2010-01-18 04:10 pm (UTC)