Rating: 
Summary: Heartbreaking
Review: The best film I ever saw. Not for children.
Rating: 
Summary: the movie where no one smiles
Review: The movie was beautiful to look at, yes; the photography was top notch right down to the film stock. This I don't dispute. It's an acquired taste kind of film, and I was very excited to see it, from the first trailer I saw for it something like a year ago. This is the kind of movie I like. And I didn't dislike it, but as I read these reviews lauding and praising it beyond compare, I think to myself, "eh". A previous reviewer said it's the kind of film that presents a situation and dares not to offer solutions or answers. This is true. Everything is depicted as it happens, without offering insite or speculation on the motivations of the characters. They just do these things, stare, and walk away. After 98 minutes, that was my reaction too. I pushed play, I stared, and then walked away. There is only one outburst in the entire film of any note, and it was nice to see. It was also nice to see that none of the female characters under forty ever wore a bra. If that sounds trite, well, that's the emotional impact left on me after watching this film 20 minutes ago. This film is stark, and poetic, and yet it is almost so obviously so, that it was as if that was the intention from the beginning and the film didn't take on a life of it's own beyond that. I will say that I'm very much looking forward to Tim Roth's next directorial project and that the performance of Kara Belmont was lovely. But life changing the film was not. and no one ever did smile.
Rating:
Summary: The best review of Tim Roth's "The War Zone"(by
Review: THE WAR ZONE (****) BY ROGER EBERT It must have been somethinglike this in medieval times, families living in isolation, cut off from neighbors, forced indoors by the weather, their animal and sexual functions not always shielded from view. Tim Roth's "The War Zone," brilliant and heartbreaking, takes place in the present but is timeless; most particularly it is cut off from the fix-it culture of psychobabble, which defines all the politically correct ways to consider incest. The movie is not about incest as an issue, but about incest as a blow to the heart and the soul--a real event, here, now, in a family that seems close and happy. Not a topic on a talk show. The movie takes place in winter in Devon, which is wet and gray, the sky squeezing joy out of the day. The family has moved from London "to make a fresh start," the mother says. They live in a comfortable cottage, warm and sheltered, life revolving around the big kitchen table. Mum (Tilda Swinton) is very pregnant. Dad (Ray Winstone) is bluff and cheery, extroverted, a good guy. Tom (Freddie Cunliffe) is a 15-year-old, silent and sad because he misses his friends in London. Jessie (Lara Belmont) is 18 years old, ripe with beauty. This looks like a cheerful story. Roth tells it obliquely, sensitive to the ways families keep secrets even from themselves. Early in the film the mother's time comes and the whole family rushes to the hospital; there's a car crash, but a happy ending, as they gather in the maternity ward with the newcomer, all of them cut and bruised, but survivors. Back at home, there is a comfort with the physical side of life. Mum nurses her child, in kitchen scenes like renaissance paintings. Tom is comfortable with his sister's casual nudity while they have a heart-to-heart talk. Mum helps wash her men at the kitchen sink, Jessie dries her brother's hair in the laundry room, the family seems comfortable with one another. Then Tom glimpses a disturbing part of a moment between his father and his sister. He challenges Jessie. She says nothing happened. Something did happen, and more will happen, including a scene of graphic hurtfulness. But this isn't a case of Tom discovering incest in his family and blowing the whistle. It's much more complicated. How does he feel about his sister, and about her relationship with her new boyfriend Nick? What about his father's eerie split personality, able to deny his behavior and see Tom's interference as an assault on their happy family? What about the mother's willingness not to know? What about his sister's denial? Does it spring from shame, fear or a desire to shield Tom and her mother from the knowledge? ... The movie's refusal to declare exactly what the London episode means is admirable, because this is not a zero-sum accounting of good and evil, but a messy, elusive, painfully complex tragedy in which no one is driven by just one motive. When Tom is accused of destroying the family and having a filthy mind, there is a sense in which he accepts this analysis. One critic of the film wrote that a "teenage boy (from the big city, no less) would surely be more savvy--no matter how distraught--about the workings and potential resolutions of such a situation."... Incest is not unfamiliar as a subject for movies, but most incest stories are about characters simplified into monsters and victims... The father here is both better and worse because of his own probably traumatic childhood. He must long ago have often promised himself that he would be different than his own father, that he would be a good dad--loving, kind, warm, cheerful--and so he is, all except for when he is not. When he's accused of evil, he explodes in anger--the anger of the father he is now and also the anger of the child he once was. For a moment his son is, in a sense, the abuser, making Dad feel guilty and shameful just as his own father must have, and tearing down all his efforts to be better, to be different. Unsurprisingly, "The War Zone" affects viewers much more powerfully than a simple morality tale might. It is not simply about the evil of incest, but about its dynamic, about the way it does play upon guilt and shame, and address old and secret wounds. The critic James Berardinelli says that when he saw the movie at the Toronto Film Festival, a viewer ran from the theater saying he couldn't take it anymore and went looking to pull a fire alarm. Roth was standing near the exit and intercepted him, becoming confessor for an emotional outpouring that the movie had inspired. Roth is one of the best actors now working, and with this movie he reveals himself as a director of surprising gifts. I cannot imagine "The War Zone" being better directed by anyone else, even though Ingmar Bergman and Ken Loach come to mind. Roth and his actors, and Stuart's screenplay, understand these people and their situation down to the final nuance, and are willing to let silence, timing and visuals reveal what dialogue would cheapen. Not many movies bring you to a dead halt of sorrow and empathy. This one does. END
Rating:
Summary: Hard to find, hard to watch
Review: This film is hard to find in that
your local Blockbuster will hesitate
to carry a movie with such a difficult
subject matter. Essentially, we see
the sexual abuse of a teenage girl
through the eyes of her brother.
Everything about this movie is
bold, the actors take great emotional
and physical risks as does the director.
Scenes are not blasted through with music,
he allows the nakedness of the situation
to hit you as it would the praticipants
in the film. Ray Winstone and Tilda Swinton
let it all hang out(literally) in very
unflattering scenes. Such a willingness
to sacrifice personal dignity is hard to come
by in American cinema. As a recent example
though, Halle Barry performed admirably in
Monster's Ball- so not all is lost.
If you have been sexually abused in your
life you might want to avoid this film and
stick to therapy though. Proper treatment
of wounds does not always necessitate
reopening them.
And Congratualations for Tim Roth as
director. I hope he ignores the paltry
box office receipts and dares to bring us more.
Rating:
Summary: Hard to find, hard to watch
Review: This film is hard to find in that
your local Blockbuster will hesitate
to carry a movie with such a difficult
subject matter. Essentially, we see
the sexual abuse of a teenage girl
through the eyes of her brother.
Everything about this movie is
bold, the actors take great emotional
and physical risks as does the director.
Scenes are not blasted through with music,
he allows the nakedness of the situation
to hit you as it would the praticipants
in the film. Ray Winstone and Tilda Swinton
let it all hang out(literally) in very
unflattering scenes. Such a willingness
to sacrifice personal dignity is hard to come
by in American cinema. As a recent example
though, Halle Barry performed admirably in
Monster's Ball- so not all is lost.
If you have been sexually abused in your
life you might want to avoid this film and
stick to therapy though. Proper treatment
of wounds does not always necessitate
reopening them.
And Congratualations for Tim Roth as
director. I hope he ignores the paltry
box office receipts and dares to bring us more.
Rating:
Summary: A film, not a movie
Review: This film, directed by Tim Roth, is a trully work of art. It's an european film and not a movie made in U.S. The subject is incest and this film treats the subject totally different than all the movies made in Hollywood in which the incest looks like horror stories for Halloween with really bad monsters and poor victims. Besides this film there are a few exceptions. Like David Lynch's "Twin Peaks - Fire Walk With Me" or "Bliss" in which the same Sheryl Lee plays the victim with great skill. "The War Zone" is a good example that the art in films is not yet dead. It's heartbreaking without even trying to be melodramatic. It tells the story of a family and the secret around it. When the secret is discovered by the son we expect from him to do his best, to be a hero. But he doesn't. The sister is a victim, the father is the abuser. And the son is Jeffrey Beaumont, wondering why there are people like his father, why there is so much trouble in the world. His questions will remain unanswered.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing movie.
Review: This great film is Tim Roth's first directorial attempt. Hesucceeds on every level. This story of a British family being tornapart by abuse is perfectly told. As close to a perfect movie as it gets, I think. I could not possibly recommend a movie more; few movies are this good.
Rating:
Summary: The film that should not exist. But it does.
Review: This is a very sad film. Why are people so cruel to each other? Why is there so much trouble in the world? Why do parents do this unforgivable sin to their own children who they claim to love? I wish to say that this film should not have a reason to exist. But it does. It shows us the effects of incest, and it's a devastating unforgettable experience.
Rating: 
Summary: More tea, vicar?
Review: Tim Roth chaired an open forum to answer questions about this film on release. When he heard an opinion he objected to, he invited the opinionator to step outside. Phew! What a commitment to free speech. Mr Orange isn't just for Hollywood, he's for life! This film is shot in widescreen so we can get the full panorama of misery. After a charming scene of buggery, Mr Roth pauses to set up a nicely framed bit of arthouse aesthetica with daughter in the middle and dad to one side in halo's of light. Aw, bless. What worries me about War Zone's pre-publicity is that all the sleazo's out there will fast forward to find the bunk up in the bunker for a quick dodgy Barclays. Between you, me and the edge of a cliff, I leave it up to your imagination as to what should be done to pond life who do that. "So give us your review of the rest of the film, Gaz!" Ooer, is that the time?.......
Rating: 
Summary: absolutely chilling
Review: Tim Roth makes a very convincing debut as director with this film, which is possibly *the* most disturbing and thought-provoking film I've ever seen. This is no TV-movie-of- the-week; these folks mean business. This film hits hard, and although rather calm in the beginning, slowly becomes absolutely horrifying. There were points in the film where I considered whether or not I should continue watching, and yet I think this is a great film because of its importance as a howl of pain in the face of domestic abuse. Roth shows he is a director with talent; it has the look and feel of the work of Terence Malick or maybe even Ingmar Bergman. He allows you the viewer to slowly be drawn into the relative calm of day-to-day family life, while "clues" to what is happening are subtly introduced. When the horrible truth becomes apparent, the effect is extremely shocking and disturbing. There is no hope in this film. It is a veritable cinematic ground zero; raw, helpless, painful to watch, as disturbing as Pasolini's "Salo", with moments of clinical detachment like Bob Fosse's "Star 80", and there are times when we are shown absolutely painful and dreadful scenes, but the camera looks on and does not back away. Watch "The War Zone", and I guarantee it will be near impossible to put it out of your mind.
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