Rating of
3.5/4
a thought provoking study of a family in peril
Looneymanthegreat - wrote on 04/17/13
Thank god for the Criterion Collection, because if it wasn’t for it I would most likely never herd of, much less seen, The Forgiveness of Blood.
The film is about a young family who ends up trapped in their home due to a family feud started by the father of said family.
Despite its kick-a$$ title, the movie is more of the slow drama type, but t is not without its suspense none the less. The threat of death is always hanging over the characters heads as they are stuck in a house together.
The forced stay at home changes or brings out the characters of the family. During their entrapment the women folk are forced to do much if not all of the work (apparently there is some sort of feud law that states that women cannot be harmed or threatened,) and the young girls are forced to grow up faster then they might have liked. The protagonist, an eighteen year old boy, has become frustrated with being treated like a child amongst his family and being isolated from his peers.
If your looking for a rousing thriller then look elsewhere, but The Forgiveness of blood is an incredibly well maid drama about what happens to a family that is probably no to unlike your own when pressure, confinement and fear are brought into the mix. The result may not be as shocking, violent or dramatic as you might think but it sure as hell is accurate and analytical; it attempts to give us an accurate portrait of realistic people, and comes about as close as you could hope for in 100 something minutes.
