The Cold Lands
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | The Cold Lands |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 2013 |
| length | 101 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Tom Gilroy |
| script | Tom Gilroy |
| production |
Philipp Engelhorn Andrew Goldman Paul Mezey Michael Raisler |
| music | Rooster Rowe |
| camera | Wyatt Garfield |
| cut | Julia Bloch |
| occupation | |
| |
The Cold Lands is an American film drama directed by Tom Gilroy from the year 2013 . The film premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival in February 2013 in the “Generation 14plus” section. It is about the development of a young person, which is shaped by the death of his free-thinking mother and the encounter with a traveling merchant.
action
11-year-old Atticus lives with his mother Nicole in a poor wooden house outside a village in the Catskill Mountains , New York State . Despite her obvious poverty, which is represented by a power failure, for example, the mother insists on her independence, especially from social security. She teaches her son a lot of American history, such as a land tenant revolt in the American anti-rent war in 1845.
One day, Atticus returns from a birthday party and learns that his mother has died. According to the mother's diction that he does not need outside help, the boy flees into the forest and lives there for several days. However, this place is no longer an idyll: rubbish is lying around everywhere, scrapped cars are rotting away, and a private shooting range symbolizes the aggressiveness of the people who live here. At the same time he experiences fairy tales: the mother's ghost appears regularly, he maintains constant contact with him, and a fawn approaches him trustingly, a counterpoint to a shot roebuck that he had once seen on a wagon.
After a few days in the forest, Atticus stumbled upon an illegal crystal meth laboratory during the night and was followed by the dealers. But a man named Carter saves him and he spends the next time with him. Carter is a casual laborer and aviation vendor, a kind of hippie, his home is his car, tent, or sometimes an empty house, and his main source of income is homemade silver jewelry. He becomes a kind of mentor to the boy.
At the end of the film, on Carter's advice, Atticus returns a chain that he had previously stolen from a vacation home. After the return action, Carter appears to have disappeared, and all the instability of the boy's situation becomes apparent.
background
The film was set in Rensselaerville , Albany County in the Catskill Mountains, where director Gilroy owns a house. Most of the actors, especially Silas Yelich, come from this place. The director had taught the 11-year-old how to act for a year. The name Atticus comes from the novel Who disturbs the nightingale by the American writer Harper Lee .
The figure of the casual laborer Carter has a real basis: namely the worker with whom Gilroy built his house. He also makes the jewelry shown in the film.
In an interview, the director highlighted the main intentions of the film:
“Concern for the welfare of our children. ... What do we teach them? What kind of life do we give them? What kind of planet and what kind of environment, what kind of government and social system do we leave to them? Do we leave them a community in which everyone works to take care of the other, or do we leave them a community in which 'everyone for himself'? "
criticism
"It has become rare to find characters in a film, especially in an American film, that you could find outside the screen - as if you were walking out of the cinema and having a conversation with them outside."
"While the eyes of the audience are opened by a remarkably young actor, Gilroy presents us in an unpretentious but mind-stimulating portrait of life as it takes place in our wooded backyard, which we have never seen in this way before."
Awards
- Nashville Film Festival - 2013, Special Jury Prize - Promising Actor (Silas Yelich)
- São Paulo International Film Festival - 2013, Best Feature Film (Nominated)
- Sarasota Film Festival - 2013, Jury Prize - Narrative Feature Film Competition (Nominated)
Web links
- The Cold Lands in the Internet Movie Database (English)