THE WAR ZONE (1999) ***Reviewed 12/13/99
Actor Tim Roth makes his directorial debut with The War Zone. Fifteen-year old Tom and his family have just moved from London to eternally overcast seacoast town Devon. His mother gives birth to a daughter, Alice, just at the time Tom discovers his older sister and his father have an incestuous relationship.
Roth does a very accomplished job on his first time out giving his film a Bergmanesque feel. He is often willing to forego dialogue to tell the story visually and is quite successful. However, ultimately the film doesn't have the emotional cohesiveness a Bergman would have been able to give it. So unrelently cold and bleak, The War Zone comes off more mood than story. We get a horrifying feel for the damage incest inflicts, but no more and no less. Roth has said that he did not want to supply the father with some simplistic motivation and that he wanted no catharsis. That is fine, but with what we have here, the supposed enlightenment that incest is bad is hardly enlightenment at all.
With Ray Winstone as the father, Tilda Swinton as the mother, Freddie Cunliffe as Tom, and Lara Belmont as sister Jessie, every single member of the cast is superb. Particularly surprising is that neither Cunliffe nor Belmont have ever acted before, and Belmont gives one of the best performances of the year. Her physical similarity to Swinton helps. Lensing, Seamus Garvey makes the coastal backdrop look stunning utilizing the widescreen framing to the fullest.