Atonement
You stupid child. Getting people killed, is that her idea of fun? And the final gut punch, oof.
The setting is a classic Austenian upper-class manor. Idle rich children prance about the house, while servants cater to their needs. Among those servant’s children is an educated boy, ready to climb more steps on the social ladder by studying to be a doctor, and marrying her sweetheart bosslady. In classic stiff upper lip manner, their throbbing hearts beat internally, but not a peep is said or done. Mostly.
Our protagonist child, a wannabe writer, comically misunderstands a lot of adult actions and banter, then does the unthinkable and libels the boy with most foul slander. I’m afraid it does involved manhandling small girls, baiting them with sweets.
This is such a groundbreaking event that there’s a fast cut to Dunkirk evacuation, where our working class stiff really wants to get back to the Home Front. His lover remains faithful, but legally parted, and our protagonist is the one atoning for what she did.
The story is tragic and beautiful enough as-is, but then the latest gut punch comes out of nowhere and hits you like a ton of bricks. Opened the floodgates of regret.
The soundtrack has a bunch of typewriter sounds instead of beats, a fitting soundscape for war torn Britain. Technically, this is beautifully shot, with delicious small details, and then there’s the big uncut tracking shot on the beach. Marvellous, incredible, a magnificent set piece. No embellishments, no adjectives. Just the truth.
This is my place for ramblings about sequences of images that exploit the human visual limitation know as persistence of vision.