“They’re taking our children away”

So, I had mentioned in my previous post that while watching The Sweet Hereafter I noticed a bizarre connection between that movie and the song "They Don't Want Your Corn, They Want Your Kids" by Liars. Well, I said I'd post another entry about it, and here it is.

Some of the things I am going to cover regarding the movie involve some plot points that may not ruin the movie per se, but will definitely give some stuff away. So consider this your spoiler alert. If you're interested in watching The Sweet Hereafter (which I would recommend), I might hold off on reading this.

***Spoilers Start***

As I was watching the movie, I kept hearing bits of dialogue that sounded vaguely familiar. By about the third time this happened, I realized that all these lines in the movie were also lyrics in the aforementioned Liars song "They Don't Want Your Corn, They Want Your Kids". After I realized this, I picked up on a few more lines of dialogue that are also lyrics. Most of the time, the lyrics aren't exact quotes from the movie, but are practically identical. Here is an example:

In one scene, Sarah Polley's character is reading "The Pied Piper" by Robert Browning to two children, and this becomes a reoccurring theme throughout the movie, her character providing voiceover in multiple scenes as she continues to read the poem. The poem includes the lines:

Fathers, mothers, uncles, cousins

Cocking tails and pricking whiskers

Families by tens and dozens

Brothers, sisters, husbands, wives

Followed the Piper for their lives

This is actually what brought this to my attention. The Liars song contains the lines:

Fathers, mothers, uncles, cousins

Families by tens and dozens

Brothers, sisters, husbands, wives

All of them fighting for their lives

Again, not an exact quote, but pretty close (actually, I'm not entirely sure about that last line, but it's close enough). Now, I realize that it seems perfectly reasonable that Liars took their lyrics from the original Browning poem rather than the movie. Which is more or less what I thought, but it kept happening. Here is another example. The character of Mitchell Stevens is talking on the phone to his runaway drug addicted daughter, Zoe. They have the following exchange:

Mitchell: Tell me your news, Zoe.

Zoe: OK. Yesterday I went to sell my blood. I'm in this fucking city, and I'm selling my blood.

Mitchell: That's not news, Zoe.

Zoe: No, but this is. They wouldn't take my blood. Do you know what that means, Daddy? Does it register? I tested positive. Welcome to hard times, Daddy.

Mitchell: What do you want me to do, Zoe? I'll do whatever you want.

Zoe: I need money.

Mitchell: What for?

Zoe: No, you cannot ask me that! Not anymore! You asked me what I wanted, not what I wanted it for. I want money.

Mitchell: Do you have a blood test?

Zoe: You don't believe me? You don't fucking believe me?! I like it when you don't believe me. It's better that you don't believe me, but have to act like you do.

[Both are quiet]

Zoe: I can hear you breathing

Mitchell: I can hear you breathing, too.

[Zoe hangs up phone, Mitchell continues to whisper into the now dead line]

Mitchell: I love you, Zoe. I'll take care of you. I'll take care of you.

Pretty intense, right? Well here are the lines from "They Don't Want Your Corn, They Want Your Kids" sung in a back-and-forth call-and-response style:

Mama, I'm selling my blood

Welcome to hard times

Daddy, I can hear you breathing

I'll take care of you

I'll take care of you

And finally, one last example that I noticed. When Mitchell is trying to convince one of the parents to join the lawsuit, and the parent refuses, Mitchell explains that his daughter is a drug addict. That everyone is losing their children, if it isn't bus accidents, it's drugs. If it isn't drugs, it's any number of other horrible things that destroy our children's lives. He concludes by saying:

Something's happening that's taking our children away.

In the song, the four lines quoted above ("Mama, I'm selling my blood…") are followed with the repeated phrase:

They're taking our children away

I'll take care of you

They're taking our children away

***Spoilers End***

I want to make it clear, it's not like the entire song is somehow lifted from the movie. There are just some lyrics that are obviously inspired by (or taken from) the movie. More than anything, this just seemed extremely bizarre. Buried in the middle of a dense and strange concept album about German witch folklore is a song seemingly inspired by an independent Canadian film from 1997 (that has absolutely nothing to do with witches, mind you). I've just been trying to wrap my mind about what a strange and totally unexpected pairing this is.

Regardless, both the song and movie are amazing. I'd highly recommend seeing The Sweet Hereafter (check out my entry about it to see if it sounds up your alley). I also absolutely love the song "They Don't Want Your Corn, They Want Your Kids." In fact, I love everything Liars do, and They Were Wrong, So We Drowned is definitely my favorite album. It's a strange, dense, ugly album, so it's not for everyone. But it's one of my favorites.

[Note: I totally had the quotes formatting really nicely in Word, then the formatting got all screwed up when I uploaded the post. Sorry about that.]

“No, not mean. Just very angry.”

After being thoroughly taken in by Atom Egoyan's Exotica, I bumped another of his movies to the top of my Netflix queue, The Sweet Hereafter.

Egoyan's The Sweet Hereafter (an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Russell Banks) tells the story of how a tragic school bus accident forever changes a small mountain town, and how easily the grieving process can be disrupted and distorted. Following a school bus accident that takes the lives of over 20 children, a lawyer named Mitchell Stevens (Ian Holm) arrives in town, intent on initiating a law suit. As he works his way through family after family, his presence confuses the town and disrupts its ability to deal with the tragedy. The mettle of all involved, including Stevens, is called into question as the impending lawsuit drives a schism through the already fractured town.

The premise of a lawyer exploiting the deaths of children sounds like it could easily have been unwatchably depressing, yet The Sweet Hereafter has less a feeling of crushing depression than a feeling of exhausted resignation. It is definitely sad, but never exploitative or melodramatic. The town, in its state of perpetual shock, seems coldly calm as anger, blame, confusion, pain, and loss all simmer below the surface. There are no grand scenes or gestures, but simply a town full of people, who all know each other, trust each other, who are all trying to deal quietly with the same personal and shared tragedy.

Egoyan dismantles the narrative and weaves it back together into a single coherent tapestry, painting a broad portrait of the town and its people. Even though scenes jump back and forth in time, the story never seems disjointed, flashbacks to known and unknown times flow coherently in and out of the ongoing story. The viewer is ultimately given not just a story, but a panoramic understanding of the characters and the small world they inhabit. Matching the broad narrative, the film is filled with stunning, beautiful photography of the small snowy mountain town. Large skies and monstrous snow-capped mountains fill the frame, giving the town a harsh and natural beauty, making the town look so small and isolated in an intimidatingly large world.

The acting is fantastic throughout. Be it Ian Holm as the lawyer whose motivation has less and less to do with money, the bus driver who must deal with the knowledge that she was behind the wheel when the bus crashed, or any number of the parents dealing with the death of their children. An eighteen year old Sarah Polley deserves special recognition as the lone child to survive the crash. She delivers a subtle and nuanced portrayal of a girl whose world is thoroughly and irreversibly changed.

The film is beautiful and powerful, but never melodramatic or exploitative. The story is twisted, subtle, and confusing, but never frustrating. Just as in life, there are no clear motivations, no good guys or bad guys, no complete resolutions. Everything moves forward, for better or worse, one day at a time. No faster, no slower.

Just as with Exotica, at the end of the film, I was left thinking about The Sweet Hereafter long after it was finished. I went to bed thinking about it and resuming thinking about it as soon as I woke up. If all of Egoyan's films are this deeply affecting, I am more than willing to dive completely into his filmography. I think I liked Exotica better, but acknowledge that The Sweet Hereafter was probably a better movie. But really, it doesn't matter, they were both amazing films, and both deserve to be watched.

[Note: I noticed a bizarre connection between this film and the Liars' song "They Don't Want Your Corn – They Want Your Kids" off of They Were Wrong, So We Drowned. I plan on writing up a brief entry on this soon, so look out.]