Word: lavin
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...Lavin's special fondness for Kevin does not go unrecognized by the frightful eyes of the other boys. When Kevin is called to see Lavin in his office each night, the boys give each other knowing glances. Yet their inability to do anything in the face of this authority is overwhelming. Silence translates into an uneasy acceptance of these secret sadistic practices. Invoking the words of God, the priests regularly threaten the young men with tales of hell and torture. They force the boys to believe that the orphanage is their last refuge in a society that has rejected them...
Within this world of veiled desire, the movie focuses on the tense relationship between the central character, Father Peter Lavin (Henry Czerny), who runs the orphanage and Kevin (Johnny Morina), a 10-year old boy surrounded by a halo of pure innocence. Lavin is a tyrant of the priesthood--in his black robe, he is a model of pathology and pure evil. Czerny's performance in the role is nothing less than stellar--as his steely eyes glitter, he brings to light both the calculated ruthlessness as well as the moments of ferocious anger in this complex character. Silent...
Within the orphanage's word of fanatic discipline and smothered cries, the scenes between Lavin and Kevin stand as the most disturbing and complex moments in the film. When Kevin responds to Lavin's caresses by saying "You are not my mother," Lavin erupts into a volcanic fury. He has literally taken the avenging power of God into his own hands, and transformed it into the sadistic whipping of a terrified young boy. On a powerfully symbolic level, the film uses religious iconography to express the corruption at the core of the Church. The cross in Lavin's robe becomes...
...film begins with this radically destabilizing image of the private bourgeois existence within which Lavin has withdrawn. Since the days in the orphanage, Lavin has become an architect, now married with a wife and two young boys. Smith aims to explore the ambiguities of this man, who at one point in his life inflicted such pain on those around him. With the sudden return of his past actions. Lavin still inflicts pain on those around him, but in a radically different way. Now the camera focuses on the confusion, mistrust and terror in the eyes of his wife. She must...
...Lavin brought the 400-person crowd to laughter with her rendition "in six-part harmony" of the Everly Brothers' "All I want to Do is Dream...