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Author Topic: Talking about Talking About Kevin  (Read 6257 times)

AAAutin

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Re: Talking about Talking About Kevin
« Reply #10 on: February 07, 2012, 01:13:24 AM »
Well, just to wrap up and maybe give you some insight into where I'm coming from, my answer if asked the same question would be a definitive no. I don't think art has responsibilities or obligations to anything but itself. There is no topic too taboo, nor any handling inappropriate. I am at the mercy of the piece's insular dogma.   

Proxy Music

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Re: Talking about Talking About Kevin
« Reply #11 on: February 07, 2012, 10:35:30 AM »
Hi Adam.

Chris off the Facebook page here. I feel your review as written here clears a lot of things up from the show; I understand and appreciate your take on things a lot more now.

I would like to respond to some of the questions/criticisms raised in your post, though. First of all, your statement that you have to be fully involved in the film to appreciate it, you have to be 'along for the ride' and 'buy completely into the story's construct'. I'm not sure I would apply that to any film, to be honest, but certainly not in this case. A friend of mine described 'Kevin' as a 'Baroque nightmare', and I think this is particularly apt. This all relates back to the subjectivity argument, I'm afraid! Ramsay has presented the inner workings of a fractured, guilt (as well as drug and alcohol) ridden mind. The film can thus be appreciated without being involved, the audience is allowed to be confused, to find things improbable. This is not supposed to be a realistic representation of events leading up to a horrific crime, it is a mother's unreliable memory of her son from birth, and her coming to terms with loathing her own child pretty much from conception and how that has/has not influenced his behaviour. It is for this reason you have Kevin clearly represented as evil incarnate, that is how Eva sees him. Similarly, Franklin is portrayed as an insufferable dolt from the time Kevin is born, oblivious to his 'evil' antics and, thus, in some way complicit in them.

This goes a long way to explaining your other questions relating to her seeking further medical care for Kevin and also having another child. She despises Kevin for Kevin, she sees no point in treatment because she believes there is no treatment for him from a very young age. As Franklin doesn't see any problem with Kevin at all, in Eva's recounting of events, there is no pressure from him on this score, either. She completely relinquishes responsibility for him, instead choosing to have another child. A child who is not inherently evil. This is why Celia is portrayed as an angelic child: loving, curious and sweet - anti-Kevin, if you will.

As for staying in the town, for punishing herself, Eva is partially doing this for the ultimate taboo of hating her offspring as well as a sense of any responsibility for his crimes, possibly more so. She knows hating her son is morally wrong, unspeakable, but she is not necessarily fully committed to it as she genuinely believes her boy is evil, that her hatred of him is justified and her responsibility for the incident limited, even though she did neglect him, because he probably would have done something like this anyway. She feels obliged to punish herself, not necessarily compelled to, hence hiding and attempting to have some normalcy in her life through a new job whilst refusing to move on to pastures new. It's this sort of contradiction that makes the text so rich, to my mind; she is a confused, damaged woman - what she does isn't supposed to make sense. People who have suffered severe trauma, allied to an already clearly pretty unstable mind, do and think odd things.

So to Celia and the eye. The reason this happens off screen is because Kevin probably didn't actually blind his sister. Eva can't remember putting the bleach away, did Celia do this to herself accidentally? Is Eva's clear accusation (indeed, refusal to believe any other possible explanation at the time) that Kevin mutilated his sister one of the things that pushed him to attack his schoolmates? A self-fulfilling prophecy? That this is not explicitly shown onscreen suggests there is nagging doubt in Eva's mind that Kevin was responsible, which would throw her whole view of him into question. Ramsay actually removes a key point from Eva and Kevin's final visit in the novel to heighten the ambiguity in Celia's injury.

As for the tone, I think it's incredibly brave of Ramsay to produce a piece so terrifying, addressing so many taboos, as 'horror-camp', as you guys put it. What better way of challenging audience values and ideals of motherhood than subverting such grave issues into macabre comedy?

These are my thoughts on it, not definitive. The fact that we have such opposing views on the film and the same techniques I find quite interesting.
« Last Edit: February 07, 2012, 11:46:01 AM by Proxy Music »

ThePagoda

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Re: Talking about Talking About Kevin
« Reply #12 on: February 07, 2012, 01:35:52 PM »
- That one visit to the doctor when he was 4 or 5 was all you needed to resign yourself to the fact that your son isn’t treatable? No further diagnoses? We never see her take Kevin to another doctor or therapist, or seek any kind of further evaluations between ages 5 and high school, which would be tough to accept in any era, but especially so now with schools often noting even the slightest interpersonal communication problems and suggesting action.
Which brings us back to her decision to stay in the same town...

The doctor, along with every single person who speaks with Eva about Kevin mentions how great of a kid he is. This would suggest that his teacher would also be unlikely to have any complaints about him, because to everyone but Eva he's a normal, kind hearted boy. If that is the case, what is the point of showing the exact same scene of an older Kevin with another doctor who is just going to say the same thing?

sdb_1970

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Re: Talking about Talking About Kevin
« Reply #13 on: February 07, 2012, 02:58:31 PM »
I have to agree with AAAutin (I think).  I give this film high marks just for the sheer audacity of giving a voice to a perspective that is very rarely given a voice in this medium - presenting the truly ambivalent mother (and not as immoral or unsympathetic) and challenging the traditional notions of maternal instincts - and doing so in a nonprurient, nonpornographic manner.  IMHO, a lot of the discomfort with this film seems to stem from an underlying feeling that the filmmaker shouldn't even be presenting such a voice.  (I find it fascinating that so much time is spent arguing whether (and to what degree) Kevin's character - a fictional one - is realistic or believable, when we all know that truly psychopathic and sociopathic individuals exist in the real world.  Yet, that's not what a lot of viewers wanted to see in this particular film - or more accurately, I would argue, they didn't want a mother seeing her son in that light.   If there was not a great deal of passionate divisiveness about the film, I believe it wouldn't be having its intended effect.


And there's one giant, glaring psychological theme - very powerfully presented and transcending the simple mother-son relationship ideas - that seems to be missing from the detractors' characterization of this fim - guilt.  What does guilt do to the mind?  What do our minds do to simultaneously cope with the guilt, while also holding on to it.  Without being a parent or a woman, I was very moved by just that aspect of Eva's character alone.
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tatiana.larina

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Re: Talking about Talking About Kevin
« Reply #14 on: February 14, 2012, 06:24:55 PM »
Hello,

Coming late to the party as I had to catch up with my podcast listening.  I really have no right to be here as I haven't seen the movie.  I guess I kind of subconsciously avoided it since the book is one of the most haunting I've ever read and I didn't want to see how well or how bad it got in the process of transfer to the screen.  But I'd like to add just my two-cents worth about the often asked question "Why didn't she move out after the massacre?"  In the book Eva addresses this question, saying that 1stly she wanted to be within driving distance from Kevin's juvenile detention centre or whatever this place is called, And 2ndly, she feels there is really no escape for her because her and Kevin's name and faces have been all over the media, which immediately dubbed Kevin "KK", and the name is rather characteristic one.  So in the end she feels she can't be anonymous anywhere, but the town
Quote
is the one place in the world where the ramifications of my life are fully felt, and it's far less important to me to be liked these days than to be understood.
Worked for me, no idea how it's been solved in the movie.

FifthCityMuse

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Re: Talking about Talking About Kevin
« Reply #15 on: February 15, 2012, 07:40:16 AM »
I'm late to the party as well, and I'm really intending to comment only because I've seen the film (relatively) recently and read the novel in response to that.

Firstly, I was fairly disappointed with the review on the show largely for the reasons that pixote deals with in his post, and so I don't want to go too much into the style of review taken. What I guess I want to say is more related to how the film chooses to approach things as opposed to the book. And really, the most obvious thing is that the book has considerably larger scope to do so, through taking the form of Eva writing letters to Franklin, and so things like the unreliable narrator and Eva's thoughts are more apparent. Personally, I found the novel a greater exploration about the themes, and the novel deals much more heavily with the possibility that Kevin is fine, and that it's Eva's malicious attitude towards her son that makes her cold towards him.

The novel deals with nature vs nurture more, centering around the key question of how much is Eva to blame? But I think the novel dances around that more, being more about the way Eva perceived her relationship with her son, and to me, it's only in the denouement that the central question of the film becomes clear: after all this, how do you start to love the only family you have left, the person who did this thing? In the book it's less messy, it clearly states Eva's mind, 'we're all we've got left, and I didn't love him before, but I have to now.' I think the film is subtler that that, more eloquent than that.

But I found Ramsay's touches wonderful, not campy, and I thought her use of colour and soundtrack was as strong as the editing and sound here, and while I think the novel delves deeper into the ideas, Shriver's writing has none of the sophistication that Ramsay's filmmaking does, and so the simplified story, better told, held a deeper emotional punch.

oneaprilday

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Re: Talking about Talking About Kevin
« Reply #16 on: February 15, 2012, 10:12:44 AM »
Haven't seen the film yet, but completely agree with your take on the book, FCM.

Adam

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Re: Talking about Talking About Kevin
« Reply #17 on: February 15, 2012, 08:46:54 PM »
I have to agree with AAAutin (I think).  I give this film high marks just for the sheer audacity of giving a voice to a perspective that is very rarely given a voice in this medium - presenting the truly ambivalent mother (and not as immoral or unsympathetic) and challenging the traditional notions of maternal instincts - and doing so in a nonprurient, nonpornographic manner.  IMHO, a lot of the discomfort with this film seems to stem from an underlying feeling that the filmmaker shouldn't even be presenting such a voice.
That certainly has no connection to my reaction to the film. I'm pretty sure I can come up with at least a few worse/ambivalent screen moms in movies I loved.
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Adam

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Re: Talking about Talking About Kevin
« Reply #18 on: February 15, 2012, 08:58:44 PM »
- That one visit to the doctor when he was 4 or 5 was all you needed to resign yourself to the fact that your son isn’t treatable? No further diagnoses? We never see her take Kevin to another doctor or therapist, or seek any kind of further evaluations between ages 5 and high school, which would be tough to accept in any era, but especially so now with schools often noting even the slightest interpersonal communication problems and suggesting action.
Which brings us back to her decision to stay in the same town...

This would suggest that his teacher would also be unlikely to have any complaints about him, because to everyone but Eva he's a normal, kind hearted boy.
I'm not suggesting you have to agree with me... I'm just saying, I can't look past that partly what makes it seem like something akin to 'horror camp' is that even after you decide, ok fine, this is Eva's POV so it makes some sense we'd never see him be so evil with anyone else... his behavior with Eva is so over-the-top wrong and disturbing that it's simply not believable in any universe that she would take him to one doctor as small child and go on living with his behavior . I hate to make it seem like I'm focusing too much on a minor detail; obviously this is just one point, but it's also a detail that's at the center of everything we see unfold.
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Adam

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Re: Talking about Talking About Kevin
« Reply #19 on: February 15, 2012, 10:06:46 PM »
Ramsay actually removes a key point from Eva and Kevin's final visit in the novel to heighten the ambiguity in Celia's injury.
Chris, let me just state a few things right off the bat.

Thank you for coming over and considering my comments.

Really interesting and insightful comments on the film, and I'm sorry I'm going to totally overlook 99.999% of what you said and focus on the one part that affords me an opportunity to basically get really defensive... Truly, I'm sorry. :)

Also, I'll stipulate that: A) Not everyone who loves this movie, either in this forum or out in the real world, read the book first. Obviously.

B) It's possible (though if we're being honest with each other, not totally likely) that you would be able to express everything you've articulated here had you not read the book first. (And to cover my bases, even if you read the book after, it informs everything you're saying here looking back on the film.)

But. Wow. That line above is illuminating. Josh wasn't crazy when he wondered in bonus content if some of the group taking us to task had read the book first, was he? Listen, if it's not totally clear by now, I'm standing by my review of the film, insofar as I stand by any review as my attempt to express the experience I had, and certainly not my unleashing of any sort of definitive analysis. If I'm doing things right, I'm wrestling with my reaction while discussing it, and gleaning things from the conversation -- the conversation with my co-host, and the one it strikes up with listeners. It's not a static thing.

But how much different would our discussion inevitably have been, might my experience with the film had been, had I read the story first? Who knows, maybe I would have disliked it more. But isn't it also possible that I might have been more patient with Ramsay's 'overstated oppression', as one forum member described it? That I might have recognized more nuance in it, and been more forgiving of certain aspects because I could read between the lines, so to speak?

I mean, Josh and I had to contend with the movie on its own - a challenging movie that is naturally distancing, that presents one person's POV and leaves so much up for interpretation. I'm sure the book isn't really any more black and white, but you watched having had the entire narrative told to you previously by EVA HERSELF, in her own voice. What perspective!

Let me be clear, this isn't really directed at you specifically, Chris... I'm just using it to vent a little... but it was of course frustrating, and frankly a little insulting, to have someone equate our conversation about Kevin to the one Lyons and Mank had about Synecdoche, NY. All 2.5 minutes of it. And that frustration is only exacerbated by (sometimes) patronizing charges of insufficiency from folks who had read the book first. Can they all guarantee they would have appreciated it as much, and would be defending it as vociferously, if they hadn't?

Genuinely, I love being told I got a movie wrong. I love having to reconsider everything I said, and as you put it, "The fact that we have such opposing views on the film and the same techniques" is, in fact, quite interesting. It's when the tone isn't one of, hey, I respect your position but did you consider this... here are some things you might have missed, or this is how I read it... that it gets problematic for me. I guess I'm just wondering if the deck was stacked against us here a little bit.
« Last Edit: February 16, 2012, 09:31:40 AM by Adam »
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