Word: woman
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...most beautiful movie to date. Set in a German village just before World War I, the film is shot in black and white and depicts how a community falls apart following a series of inexplicable events: a doctor injured when his horse stumbles over a trip wire, a woman killed in a sawmill accident, a child who suffers a horrific beating. As the mystery builds, Haneke examines how the villagers, in the face of their despair, grasp at any straw offered to them - in this case, religious doctrine. Despite moments of unfathomable cruelty, The White Ribbon is a warmer, happier...
...personal alarm for women that's flying off the shelves of leading U.K. retailers and will soon be launched in the U.S. It's an odd device. About the size of an iPod, its sole function is to ward off attackers by emitting the piercing sound of a screaming woman. But what's truly unusual about it is the company that developed it: British ad agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty...
Hillcoat does make one important addition to the story: flashbacks to what life was like when the Woman (Charlize Theron) was still alive. They weren't good times--the world was well on the way to environmental ruin--but at least the Man still had a partner. Theron's presence may be a nod to producers who wanted a female star in the picture, but it's not entirely successful in terms of adhering to McCarthy's intent. Theron is graceful as always, but meeting the Woman only makes her absence more troubling and alters our relationship with...
...instance, when the Man tosses his last picture of the Woman into a gully, a gesture meant to banish dangerous sentimentality and show his commitment to inhabiting the new world, it seems cruel and pointless: cruel because the Boy is entitled to an image of his mother, pointless because every time the Man looks at the Boy's face, he must see her reflection--Smit-McPhee looks so uncannily like Theron that it's impossible to forget her. (The Boy also wears her cast-off hat for virtually the whole movie, playing up the resemblance...
...well with the potential corniness of that line (he gives a somber, deeply affecting performance). The wasteland that surrounds them--the sun's fire extinguished, the forests burning--makes forcing someone you love to endure it seem like a selfish act. "I don't want to just survive," the Woman tells the Man, and The Road creates such a seamless vision of misery that it persuades you she was right. See it if you have the strength, but if your friends turn you down, arm yourself with a stiff drink on the way in; fortification is needed...