THE NIGHTINGALE
What A Well-Crafted Film Tells
About Hate, Revenge, Grief
& Unexpected Empathy

The Nightingale: What A Well-Crafted Film Tells About Hate Revenge Grief & Unexpected Empathy

Forgiveness is overrated. Understanding is not. And, there’s much to understand in Jennifer Kent’s riveting, violently troubling, and powerful new film, The Nightingale; about trauma, PTSD, unbearable grief, and the sometimes unimaginable sources of empathy. No, no one should ever be expected to forgive their abusers. “Forgiveness” for sadistic cruelty isn’t healing. What helps is…

Read More

ELLE
Trauma & Perversion
Where Does Triumph Come In?

Trauma. We know it. We experience it. We’re left with its aftermath – when Director Paul Verhoeven’s “noir thriller,” Elle, careens to its conclusion. Leaving the theater, my mind was spinning.  As Verhoeven says, the film has: “an enormous amount of ambiguity, gaps that are in the narrative on purpose for the audience to fill in.”…

Read More