Simon's secret

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Movie
German title Simon's secret
Original title Adoration
Country of production Canada
original language English
Publishing year 2008
length 101 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Atom Egoyan
script Atom Egoyan
production Robert Lantos ,
Jennifer Weiss ,
Simone Urdl
music Mychael Danna
camera Paul Sarossy
cut Susan Shipton
occupation

Simon's Secret (Original Title: Adoration ) is a 2008 Canadian drama film directed by Atom Egoyan and starring Rachel Blanchard , Scott Speedman and Devon Bostick . It was Egoyan's first feature film since True Lies  (2005).

In the film, a schoolboy tells the story of a pregnant woman who is bombed into an airplane by her husband as a suicide bomber as his own and thus provokes a chain reaction.

The film premiered at the 2008 Cannes International Film Festival , where it competed for the Palme d' Or and was awarded the Ecumenical Jury Prize.

In Germany, the film opened in cinemas on May 21, 2009. The DVD was released in Germany on December 4th, 2009.

action

High school teacher Sabine reads a French newspaper article to her class for translation about a terrorist who placed a bomb in his pregnant friend's luggage. If the bomb had exploded, it would have killed both her and the unborn child as well as the numerous passengers. However, the attack is foiled by Israeli ground personnel.

When Simon starts translating the article, he imagines that his Palestinian father Sami was the terrorist and his girlfriend was his mother Rachel, a trained violinist. Accordingly, he was only born because the attack was thwarted. In reality, Simon lives with his uncle Tom after his parents were killed in a car accident. Influenced by his grandfather, who did not like Simon's father, Simon fears that the accident was deliberate.

Simon's teacher encourages him to develop his fictional story about his father, the terrorist, as a dramatic exercise. When he presented the story to the class, there was a lively discussion on the Internet. Sabine is released as a result of the events.

When Simon's uncle Tom, a tow truck driver, tows Sabine's car, she follows him in a taxi and then invites him to a joint restaurant visit. She reveals to him that she was married to Sami for 5 years before he met Rachel.

criticism

The film received mostly positive reviews. At Rotten Tomatoes , 61% of ratings are positive out of a total of 98 reviews. The average rating is 6.1 out of 10. At Metacritic , the film received a rating of 64% based on 20 reviews.

The film service emphasized the virtuoso play with the "different levels of time and reality" and praised the "diversity of political and philosophical references that open up". "It borders on overload, but thanks to its suggestive imagery and convincing actors, the film always remains emotionally captivating and intellectually stimulating". As in most of Egoyan's films, the central theme here is "the contradiction between existence and appearance". kino.de compared the film with Exotica  (1994) and Das süße Jenseits  (1997), in which Egoyan also narrated a family tragedy "fragmentarily nested over several time levels". Here, however, he puts it “in a larger context when dealing with intolerance and prejudice”. In Simon's Secret , Egoyan combines "different levels of time and action into a complex reflection on cultural prejudices, loss of identity and subjective truths," according to Cinema .

Awards

The film received at the International Film Festival of Cannes in 2008 the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury . It also won the Toronto International Film Festival's Best Canadian Feature Film award . Leading actor Devon Bostick was nominated for an award at the Young Artist Awards 2010 . The film also received nominations from the Directors Guild of Canada (production design, editing) and the Genie Awards ( best screenplay , best supporting actor for Scott Speedman).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Atom Egoyan's 'Adoration' to compete at Cannes . CTV Television Network. April 23, 2008. Retrieved August 19, 2009.
  2. ↑ Release Info. Internet Movie Database , accessed November 20, 2014 .
  3. ↑ a b Simon's secret. film service , accessed December 8, 2014 .
  4. ^ Adoration (2008) . Rotten tomatoes . Retrieved November 20, 2014.
  5. ^ Adoration Reviews . Metacritic . Retrieved November 20, 2014.
  6. ↑ a b Simon's secret. Cinema , accessed December 8, 2014 .
  7. ↑ Simon's secret. Busch Entertainment Media (kino.de), accessed on December 8, 2014 .
  8. ↑ Awards. Internet Movie Database , accessed December 8, 2014 .