Review of The Hanging Garden (1997) by Marc-Alexander T — 04 Mar 2010

I am usually a fan of films that take an indepth view of families, their dynamic, the emotions they stir up or which they cause us to stifle for the good of dear Aunt Edna's old world sensibilities, yet with this rather kafkaesque picture I found myself constantly waiting for the "indepth" part to take off. It seems constantly to start telling stories that it never manages to finish; the grandmother who catches her grandson fooling around with the boy from school does nothing else thereafter except buy a new Madonna for her bedroom and then proceed, over the next 10 years, to go slowly (and none too quietly) over the edge; the mother leaves her family practically without preamble and yet, despite a plethora of reasons for her actions, we are never given any clear explanation which was the impetus for her flight; the gay son returns after10 years away, yet here too we are left in the dark as to why he would return to a home as strained and dysfunctional as this one and just as left alone when he suddenly, seemingly at the drop of a hat, gets in his car and drives off again.

The movie tries hard to tell a story yet never seems to get off the ground since it is never quite clear whose story it really wants to tell. Having heard good things about this movie, I was more than a little disappointed. Granted, life itself is often disappointing and not a little puzzling, so maybe that's the message: that not every event in life makes clear, concise sense or ends as we would like or even expect it to. Then again, if I wanted real life, I wouldn't turn on the DVD player, now would I?...