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Special Features
- Video discussion "Before and After The Sweet Hereafter" with Russell Banks and Atom Egoyan
- Interview with the director on "The Charlie Rose Show"
- "The Pied Piper of Hamelin" by Robert Browning and illustrated by Kate Greenaway
Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
Customer Reviews
As usual with Egoyan films, nature is at a distance and a remove from human beings and the turmoil brimming over inside them. The beautiful BC vistas are in contrast to the tragic event that occurs. It's a bit like the end of Moby Dick, when the Pequod is smashed and sinks, while the sun smiles down serenely on the calm sea. I think Egoyan's getting at the same thing Melville is, as well. It's an existentialist's way of looking at the universe. If we're looking for a higher power to bail us out, we're out of luck. Our other moral constructs are pretty shaky, as well. We tend to think a little better of ourselves than is often the case.
As is also usual, Egoyan assembles an excellent cast, that feed off of each other's honest performances. No wrong notes here. Cinematography also up to the usual high standard. My appreciation for Egoyan's work increases with each new film I see. Personal thanks to the reviewer who led me to the works of this auteur director, in the best sense of that term.
BEK
It gives you a gut punch/ sucker punch combo all the way through, a harrowing study of the reverberations and impact of an instant.
Sarah Polley is an otherworldly talent, portraying a child possessing creepy wisdom and the voice of a dew eyed angel.
People still talk about this film today, because it entrenches itself into the minds of viewers with a conscience. Quite possibly one of the saddest, smartest, and touching films I've ever seen.
The soundtrack is mesmerizing, you will feel compelled to purchase it.
P.S. If this movie doesn't get to you in some way your heart is but a cinder.
The lawyer (Holm) represents our image of the profession's lowest: an ambulance chaser. Simultaneously, he is a dedicated father, out of sync with his professional role. Early in his life, he suffered his own impotence: A gripping fear of being unable to save his daughter. Wrenched into the role of God, he was prepared to perform the invasive procedure she might need enroute to the hospital, and the trauma of the memory lingers in the form of addiction's continuous relapse and finally, AIDS.
Holm stirs the dragon inside the grieving parents. He insists the class action suit is about "anger, not grief." He wants them to join together and punish whoever's responsible. This call to arms is sounded throughout the story and is unmistakably the author's method of reminding us that incest produces victims and is not an innocent expression of love.
Polley finds a way to punish her father despite intimating that she'd tell his nasty little secret. Holm asks her if she'll testify and she says, "...If I testify, I'll tell the truth about everything." Does she? No. She lies during the deposition because in so doing, her father loses any chance of collecting from the insurance company, bus manufacturer, etc.. Holm compliments her on her poker face. Looking straight at her father she quite evenly says "thank you.
... Read more ›The Sweet Hereafter is one such mindblowing film. It is about a terrible bus accident that kills 15 children, although we only see it from afar, and halfway into the movie - the accident is a pivotal temporal point but not the focus. The focus is on the actions surrounding that accident, and what they tell us. All the while, the story is not told in chronological order, but more or less in thematical order. Past, present and future are shuffled effortlessly, because the accident is our anchor to the story.
The story concerns many people, but especially one Mitchell Stephens, played by Ian Holm, as a lawyer hired by the Walkers (one of the victimized families) to start a class action lawsuit. He hops from family to family, from evidence to evidence, in increasingly manipulative attempts to rally town inhabitants to his cause, while the sordid secrets of the community threaten to derail him at every turn. A survivor, Nicole, is now handicapped and holds an important testimony.
Ian Holm never had a leading role before this movie. Watching his incredible performance, I want to scream bloody murder. He's perfect. That this guy can't get a leading role is mind-bogglingly insane. The other actors, though less well-known, don't unbalance the movie at all.
At first, it seems that the movie is a simple left-right conflict, with the hypocrite and conniving community on one hand, and the profiteering lawyer from the big city on the other hand.
... Read more ›
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