Undertow

The plot of this film is as pedestrian as it could be. It is a film that could well turn out to be an unkind disappointment due to the replicating storyline obscene family feuds. The movie follows the dismantlement of the Munn family and their hike to tragedy. John Munn is a father of two children, Chris and Tim, and drags a criminal past. Chris is an incorrigible juvenile delinquent and Tim, the younger, more curious, more imaginative brother is perennially sick. The uncle, Deel Munn, recently released from prison, appears at the doorstep with inchoate rancor. His thirst for revenge is fed by his brother’s prudence. Deel seeks a treasure that has stained the family with greed and violence for two generations.

The story is presented to us coated only by few, well-balanced artistic layers. The fluid narrative Gordon Green accomplishes is transparent due to his keen eye for troubled adolescence and decaying landscapes of the south (See “George Washington”, his first feature length film). The plot is never hidden from the story. The scenic ambition and the artistic vein from which Gordon Green commandeers images – freezing frames – is a testament to his talent. The film calcifies the directorial status of Gordon Green as a young genius. To transform the grimy story, where an abnormal family is plagued by misfortune, into a filmic experience augments the value of the technique and the fresh judgment behind the camera describing it.

The squalor of the south is the backdrop of the film. Gordon Green’s fascination with bucolic decomposition pervades into almost every shot of the film: the derelict hippie commune, the hopeless architecture of the Munn house, the shelter in the landfill, the frail gas stations, and the street walls decorated with slovenly graffiti. The purity of the shots and the precise sense of photography are not abased by the casual presentation of violence and severe dementia within the story. The disturbing blamelessness of the younger brother, Tim Munn, as he swallows toxic paint conveys parental abandonment. The close-ups of this secretive activity, sucking lead paint from his finger, isolate the character from other except the viewer who cannot avoid a slight alarm as Tim laboriously swallows the poisoned paint.

The solitude of the children is counterpoised with the development of their independence. After witnessing the murder of John Munn, their father, a cat-mouse wild chase ensues. In their escape they bond. I reveled in delight when the boys had the opportunity to be boys for the first time, and wrestle each other under the refreshing rain. The visuals translate the joy within the boys but Gordon Green doesn’t want us to forget the hard-to-swallow reality. He quickly levels our delight by reminding us of the quotidian tragedy of the Munn kids. Tim digs out a pile of wet soil and chews it. I could almost taste the wet specks of soil exploding in my teeth. Such calibrated delivery by the editing of the movie permits emotions to leap from inexplicable pleasure to acute distress. The brief respite of the Munn boys reaches an end. They are on the run again.

The beautiful scenery, endowed with poetry, blends with the story’s treacherous end. The wild chase must end. The murderous uncle Deel finds the boys in the forests and requests, rather politely, for his gilded coins, which are the seeds of all the family greed. Chris, after sending his brother to safety with an acquainted junkie, stands rooted in the middle of a stream. He taunts his uncle at first to then gleefully toss the coins into the water. The uncle’s countenance chances rapidly from anger to disbelief as he approaches Chris. He wades towards the boy and strangles him to death.

The final scene showcases Chris fording the delta of a river. He wades until he meets the vast omnipotent ocean. As waves swallow him in the distance, a voiceover placates our pain. The last scene is left to open interpretation, the death of Chris? The escape from the grimy living they toiled under? The bursting green balloon might hve released all the answers.