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short circuit of life
Kaia 2022-04-21 08:01:09
The title of the film may bring some confusion, but it is only an imagery of life. As an excellent independent production, the whole film has a brisk narrative and an excellent sense of rhythm. It truly restores the life atmosphere of an intellectual family in Brooklyn in the 1980s. The grainy and rough images remind people of Jarmusch or Coen at once. Brothers these are names that represent the glory days of independent cinema. The father in the film is a university professor and a former writer, while the mother suddenly got rid of the role of a housewife. The career gap coupled with the affair, the family quickly disintegrated. If the midlife crisis is a short circuit in life, then divorce is a short circuit in the family, and for the two children, their peaceful youth and fantasy about life are also short circuited, so they each start in the differences between their parents and their own confusion. grow slowly. Although the abrupt ending reveals Walt's inability to face the truth of life, Baumbach does not hold an obvious critical perspective or attempt to give any answers to his parents' midlife crisis and the resulting family breakdown. This restrained narrative style and the rich imagery in the film complement each other, creating a very tense framework for this piece of life that contains sadness and loss. The family of four's performances are infectious, and Anna Paquin plays a similarly sexy character on "25th Hour."
Extended Reading
The Squid and the Whale quotes
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[first lines]
Frank Berkman: Mom and me versus you and Dad.
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Bernard Berkman: Joan, let me ask you something. All that work I did at the end of our marriage, making dinners, cleaning up, being more attentive. It never was going to make a difference, was it? You were leaving no matter what...
Joan Berkman: You never made a dinner.
Bernard Berkman: I made burgers that time you had pneumonia.