Review of The Sweet Hereafter (1997) by Ld P — 11 Sep 2009

The Sweet Hereafter (1997) I encountered Atom Egoyan in 1994 seeing the strange film Exotica. I need to review it and see that one again also. There is something truly unique in all his movies they all have some weird perspectives and weird great attention to strange details. The Sweet Hereafter is a 1991 novel (adapted into this film by Egoyan) by American author Russell Banks. It is set in a small town in the aftermath of a deadly school bus accident that has killed most of the town's children. The film captures the atmosphere in a small town suddenly shaken by catastrophe. Fathers take to drinking, secret affairs are abruptly ended, whole families move away. Only the film viewer knows that Mitchell Stephens, the lawyer, is himself a troubled man who has effectively lost his own child?his estranged, drug-addicted daughter informs him over the phone that she has just tested HIV positive. Every once in a while a film emerges, often at the margins of the business, with a "sound designer" credit attached, and one that actually describes significant work. Atom Egoyan's Canadian film, "The Sweet hereafter," is an example of low budget commercial filmmaking in which an audio team was led by a sound designer (Steve Munro) working in tandem with a composer (Mychael Danna). Together they created a soundtrack that is not only striking in of it self, but drives the film to deeper meanings.

The film's style is illustrated by its opening sequence, a montage of scenes that crisscross time and place. As we move from past to present to future and back, sound and music are often the means by which we comprehend the temporal shifts, and constitute essential components of Eyogan's complex story telling technique. That he achieved work of such quality illustrates how the camaraderie of Eogyan's tight-knit group manages to raise the level of each individual's effort. As Munro says, "We (went) through the films, screening it many times and talking about it. I also like to work very closely with the composer, Mychael Danna who happens to live nearby to my studio." That physical proximity, Munro argues, heightened the creative intimacy between sound and music in the film.

"The Sweet Hereafter" is a unique hybrid of dialogue and fantasy film. There are naturalistic, dialogue films, "where the sound designer title isn't warranted," Munro claims. "But at the other extreme, with "The Sweet Hereafter," where the sound gets pretty funky in a lot of scenes, there is an overall concept of design and flow. If you have the opportunity to work on the overall concepts as we did in ?The Sweet Hereafter' then the term is justified." The Sweet Hereafter won three awards at the Cannes Film Festival: the FIPRESCI Prize, the Grand Prize of the Jury, and the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury. It won Best Motion Picture, Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Actor (Holm), and three other prizes at the Genie Awards for Canadian Films. It was also nominated for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay at the 70th Academy Awards. Be sure and read the Wikipedia entry about Atom Egoyan . This is a very compelling intriguing film and certainly one of the best films of 1997 highest recommendation five stars.