THE SON OF THE SHARK
A film review by Max Hoffmann
Copyright 1994 Max Hoffmann
THE SON OF THE SHARK France, 1993, 90 min. In French with English Subtitles Director: Agne'S Merlet Producer: Francois Fries Screenplay: Merlet, Santiago Amigorena Camera: Gerard Simon Editor: Guy Lecorne, Pierre Chaukroun Cast: Ludovic Veadendaele, Erick Da Silva, Sandrine Blancke, Maxime Leroux Print Gaumont
Rating: Scale 1-10 (10 = highest) 1
As the Antoine and Blane say on "In Living Color" .... "haaaaa-aated it!"
It's HOME ALONE meets THELMA AND LOUISE. Two young brothers toss any sense of connection to their community (or humanity) to the wind and go on a wild and crazy crime-spree/romp. They are possibly the most annoying child characters since Pippi Longstocking vacated the big screen sometime in the 70s. By the way, the film is not intended to be a comedy. The vacant feeling one leaves the film with makes any reviewer resort to clutching at straws to classify the experience. As the festival program relates: "As Martin, Vandendaele is extraordinary, communicating more with his eyes than with words as he draws us, albeit cautiously, into his lonely, battered world."
Merlet's directoral debut, which won the international critic's prize at Venice last year) *is* a technical marvel (stunning photography, totally believable child acting, an intense story line, thoughtful directing) but the sum of the parts is far greater than the final "hole."
Veadendaele and Da Silva play two young brothers (circa ten and twelve years old) who are already hardened criminals. Their mother abandoned them, and their alcoholic father lives in a vacuum, barely aware of them. It's not hard to imagine why! The merry pranksters run the gamut from driving a bus over a cliff, breaking windows in a butcher shop and hauling the meat out into the street, to wrapping excrement in newspapers, lighting them on fire, and fleeing in giggles after ringing the door bell. One brother puts a new spin on cake decorating by letting his bloody nose drip over the dessert tray in a cafeteria.
With little hoydens like that, the director/screenwriter failed if we're supposed to blame their parents and feel sorry for them. I found myself not only starting to "understand" Governor Pete Wilson and his support of "three strikes and you're out" but ruminating on the possiblity of lowering the age limit. (Well, the film's set in France, so that's no good.)
The two imps prefer to repeatedly run away from home, or juvenile hall, and live like the homeless, wrecking a trail of vandalism and crime where-ever they go. Agnes Merlet was inspired to write the screenplay based on a small news article she read. The fatal flaw with this film is that there is no arc of development for either the characters or the audience. You leave the theatre knowing and feeling nothing more than you did when you entered (except perhaps, an intense feeling of disgust.)
But the most disturbing and offensive element of the film is its casual attitude towards rape and sexual abuse of young girls. The young boys are on the brink of "normal" sexual development. Not fully understanding their new found attraction to the opposite sex, they approach physical relations with girls the same way they deal with items they steal from the local merchants. Twice the young boys come very close to completing a rape with a terrified young girl at knife point. Through the preceding scenes of the film, the camera glimpses these victims as beautiful, but distantly hollow ornaments, much the way the hubba hubba factor is injected into most music videos. Not only do the young boys show no signs of remorse for their actions, but the girls are completely dropped from the plot after their abuse, and there are no consequences for the crime whatsoever. It is inescapable that the director somehow viewed their criminal tendencies as "forgivable" or "to be expected" considering their circumstances. By the time the second rape scene came around I was wishing the young French girl was more familiar with the ministrations of Lorena Bobbit (it might have changed the entire tone of this review).
The film's title comes from a book that one of the brothers constantly reads and rereads. It is the only tangible relic from his remote mother's presence. He constantly reads about fish, and fantasizes about being "the son of a shark.... I wouldn't be so mean." On viewing this film, by the last reel one could only wish that sharks eat their own young.
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