A Law Unto Themselves

Juxtaposing the horrors of war around a message of peace, Mel Gibson’s 2016 offering, Hacksaw Ridge, is a rivetting piece of film making, capturing a touching love story, a complex family dynamic and harrowing battle sequences, giving us a rich, multi-faceted tapestry. Providing us with an effective window into the upbringing of our main character, Desmond Doss (Andrew Garfield), Gibson is easily able to make us bond with our lead. Each aspect of the first third of the movie, where we see this boy grow into a young adult, is perfectly chosen, as it renders us with a vision of exactly who he is as a human being. Son to a kind mother, Bertha (Rachel Griffiths), and a complicated, abusive father, Tom (Hugo Weaving), who is struggling with demons from his time spent in the military during World War I, he also has a brother nicknamed Hal (Nathaniel Buzolic). Nearly killing his brother after a tussle at a young age, Desmond becomes focussed on the Sixth Commandment: thou shalt not kill.

Narrated by the Grim Reaper (Gabriel Byrne), 2009's Perrier’s Bounty is an intriguing Irish film that mixes action and comedy within a crime story (all centred around a complex father/son relationship). Written by Mark O’Rowe (who also scribed the entertaining 2003 flick Intermission) and directed by Ian Fitzgibbon, they thrust us into the life of protagonist Michael McCrea (Cilian Murphy), a flawed, complicated figure who just happens to be sleeping in the afternoon while two thugs, Ivan (Michael McElhatton – Roose Bolton in Game of Thrones) and Orlando (Don Wycherley), sit on his couch eating his pistachios. Henchmen to a dangerous gangster, Darren Perrier (Brendan Gleeson), the duo remind the recently woken man that he owes the crime boss a hefty sum that must be paid in four short hours. Surrounded by an ever-complicated life, his female best friend Brenda (Jodie Whittaker), who lives one floor down, is struggling with her longtime boyfriend Shamie (Pádraic Delaney), while his father Jim (Jim Broadbent) arrives out of the blue and states that he is dying of cancer – the two have not spoken in some four years. Pushing them to the periphery while he deals with the more pressing problem of Perrier, he reaches out to a local drug dealer, Clifford (Domhnall Gleeson), as the man knows every low life in the city of Dublin. Getting directions to The Mull (Liam Cunningham – Davos Seaworth in Game of Thrones), a loan shark, he petitions him for some cash. Having none of it, instead, The Mull invites him to partake in a criminal venture with his buddy Dinny (Breffni McKenna), and Michael, desperate for any solution, agrees.

Made with a surprisingly nuanced touch and a quiet grace by a first time filmmaker, Jean-Pierre Melville’s (Le Samouraï) 1949 drama Le Silence de la Mer is a philosophical study in how the lives of two individuals are affected when an occupying German soldier billets at their house, and, in turn, how living in their home changes him during World War II. Based upon Jean Bruller’s novel of the same name (which he published under the nom de plume Vercors), it became a symbol of resistance against the Nazi occupation of France (Melville himself was a part of the French Resistance, as was Bruller). As an interesting sidenote, Bruller discovered that Melville was planning on making the movie without the rights to his work. Meeting up with the filmmaker, he threatened to burn the negative if he did not like it, yet he allowed him to make the movie in his own home just outside of Paris. The pact was that Bruller would show his version to 24 former Resistance members and that they would have to unanimously give it their blessing (or Melville would burn the negative in front of the author). 23 of 24 voted in favour, the sole individual to go against the crowd did so not because he disagreed with the content of the film, but rather, how he found himself as part of the panel (as a last minute substitute – which offended him). Melville won out and Le Silence de la Mer became a huge hit in France.