Atonement

I just saw Atonement at The Campus, and, WOW - it is beautifully and brilliantly filmed, powerfully scored - if you haven't yet seen it, you need to. Soon. I feel like I need to watch it again, just because it was so rich in imagery and language and symbolism - I'm sure I'll pick up more with repeated viewings.

But tonight I'll attempt to process a bit of the first time through. If you haven't seen it yet, and you don't like knowing anything about movies before you see them, quit reading now.

I'm serious, I'm going to talk in some detail about the film - don't say you weren't warned. . .

Where to begin? It's a tragedy, but it's a very odd sort of tragedy, for Briony's tragic flaw is her wild imagination, which sets off a chain of events that brings those around her down in typical tragic fashion, and it brings Briony down, in a sense, but not in the typical tragic fashion, for she has lived to tell the tale, and the survivor's guilt obviously weighs on her, there has been a "death" of the old Briony in that sense, but the tragic flaw didn't kill her outright as it normally does, and in fact, the untold story is that the tragic flaw is also the source of her comedy, of her rising, as we find out in the end that she is a successful writer. A haunted, yet successful, writer.

There is also a lot of playing with the truth in this story - this is a film of brutal honesty and brutal dishonesty. . .the whole tragic turn of events is set off by Briony's unreliable narration in the beginning, and it comes full circle as we discover that Briony is just as unreliable a narrator in the end - and yet, the story that plays in between is brutally honest as to the consequences of her dishonesty. It minces no words or images as to the grotesqueness of war, of separation, of estrangement. And Briony is at least fully honest about her dishonesty, both times, in the end.

Her dishonesty in the end is her attempt at atonement, of making the amends she was unable to make in her life, giving her sister Cecelia and C's paramour Robbie the happiness which they longed for, which she stole from them with her original dishonesty, by reuniting them and apologizing to them in the context of her final, autobiographical, piece of fiction. I would say this is Briony's attempt to redeem her story and her error, normally I would use the terms redemption and atonement rather interchangably, and yet, in the film it is clear, there is no redemption here, there was no resolution to the pain Briony has caused, there is only her atonement for what she has done, only this small gesture of kindness, offered too late in one sense, though offered before it's too late in another (before a condition that will cause her inevitable mental demise robs her completely of the memory).

Here again, the interplay of the tragedy and the comedy is fascinating, for it was through Briony's tragic flaw that Cecelia and Robbie met their deaths, and yet through this same imagination, in the end, she gives them life - in telling their story, their love lives on, their story continues every time it is read or told.

There is some rich religious imagery in the movie as well - some significant scenes involving immersion in water, as well as a confessional scene and a footwashing that are somewhat surreal oasis' in the midst of the brutal honesty - in retrospect, I'm thinking these latter two in particular are more of Briony's imaginative embellishments, but I'd need to go back and watch again to process what they might mean in the larger story.

Well, I think that's about as much traction as I'm going to get on this film tonight. If anyone else has seen it, comment or send me an e-mail, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Peace,
Catrina