The Life Before Her Eyes
by Vadim Perelman
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Eva Amurri, Evan Rachel Wood, Uma ThurmanDirector: Vadim Perelman
Brand: Magnolia Pictures
Cinematographer: Pawel Edelman
Composer: James Horner
Editor: David Baxter
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.40:1
Running Time: 90 minutes
Published: 2008-08-01
DVD Release Date: 2008-08-19
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Model: 10138
Studio: Magnolia Home Entertainment
Product features:
- Based on the novel by Laura Kasischke, this powerful drama, starring Uma Thurman, unfolds in out-of-sequence flashbacks. Recklessly hedonistic teenager Diana (Evan Rachel Wood) and her best friend, a Christian virgin (Eva Amuri), come face to face with a machine-gun-wieldingmate one morning at school in a situation reminiscent of Columbine. Thurman plays the grown-up version of Diana, who has a pe
Movie Reviews of The Life Before Her Eyes
Movie Review: Some Random Thoughts From My Twisted Mind
Summary: 5 Stars
Given the number of puzzled viewers I thought it might be helpful to just pull together some messages I have left in answer to various questions on the IMDb message board. I found it more interesting than any film I have watched over the past few years. But I like off-kilter philosophical stuff that merits repeat viewings and gives the brain cells some challenging exercise. And I like adaptations that improve upon their source novels. I like Evan Rachel Wood visually and as an actress. I like carefully crafted films where the director, the production designer, and the editor have obviously been in sync and have created a synergy between the elements; where almost every detail has a purpose and there is not a lot of throw away fluff padding the running length or trying to expand the target audience.
I can offer a few comparisons for prospective viewers; overall it is probably closest to "Carnival of Souls" (1962) so if you are a fan of that film I can almost guarantee that you will connect with this one. In style, Director Vadim Perelman reminds me a great deal of Atom Egoyan; so if you hated "Exotica", "Where the Truth Lies", or "The Sweet Hereafter" you would be wise to give "The Life Before Her Eyes" a wide birth. The story itself is a blend of "Home Room" and Donnie Darko (2001); with the match cut editing of "The Hours" (2002) linking three separate timelines together. Philosophically it blends the existential themes of "Carnival of Souls" and "The Wages of Fear" (1953), but I've not yet seen anyone else make this comparison.
STOP!!! If you haven't seen it yet stop here, watch the film, come back and read the rest, and then watch it again. Don't read any further unless you are prepared for spoilers.
The only scene that takes place in the present is the scene in the rest room. The other stuff is either Diana's flashbacks to her growing friendship with Maureen, or Diana's imagined future flashing before her eyes as she tries to make a decision. The flashbacks show viewers the process of Diana becoming less selfish and more responsible; a maturing that greatly complicates her decision.
I was not as blown away after seeing the film for the first time as I am now, although I bought into the friendship dynamic completely. I like it a little better each time I view it (including watching it with the commentary special feature turned on). Much of it is expressionism, which we don't see much in American films, so it takes a while to really connect with the stuff. And that requires you to let go of the plot and just go with the style and the theme, something easier to do "after" the first viewing. Everything is a literary device and getting caught in a plausibility trap will prevent you from making the connection needed to really go beneath the surface of the story.
The really incredible thing to me is how uniquely it explores the implications of friendship/conscience. There are rewards to friendship but also obligations (responsibilities) and if you don't feel these, then you are mistaking friendship for something much shallower. Diana's life essentially becomes a Hobson's choice; between something and nothing. And the viewer gets to watch as Wood nonverbally conveys the process of her character slowly coming to that realization. The "life before her eyes" becomes nothing once she understands the implications of that option.
The film is all about point of view, everything is being seen from Diana's POV except for the rest room scene which is from the audience point of view; where the actress Wood is communicating nonverbally with viewers in about the best acting sequence you are likely to ever witness. She is simultaneously flashing back to events in her friendship with Maureen and to parallel events in her imagined future.
Essential to understanding this process (and the film) is to recognize that she and Maureen have already spent a lot of time together imagining each others' futures; and that these times are central to Diana's thoughts and decision-making process in the rest room.
I think that the key sequence (which I only really picked up on during a later viewing) is when they are walking together on the sidewalk as the lawn sprinkler showers them with mist. The sequence is repeated later for emphasis. During this Maureen talks about how she used to watch flowers in a heavy rain. Telling Diana how the rain will crush the flowers, yet amazingly "some" of them are able to recover and bloom again as if nothing had happened. Diana flashes back to this and it is central to her decision. She believes that if she is killed instead of Maureen, that it will crush Maureen but that she will recover and bloom again. She contrasts this to the life she is imagining for herself if she allows Maureen to be killed, and the result is reflected in the crushed, decayed, and withered flowers that are symbolically shown in the later scenes of her imagined future.
Also note the scenes where Diana is searching for Emma. What the director and production designer are trying to communicate in those scenes is that the real Diana has already been shot and her imaginary future is unraveling. Watch what happens to the necklace the adult Diana is wearing in the woods (falling in the water in the woods coincides with the young Diana falling into the water that is pooling on the rest room floor), her necklace has broken and the stones are hanging in the same pattern the bullets made on the young Diana's chest.
There is a director's commentary on the DVD, in which he takes you through every clue and symbolic reference in his film.
Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.
Summary of The Life Before Her Eyes
Imaganitive impetuous & wild diana cant wait for her adult life to begin. Diana tests her limits as her more conservative friend maureen watches with concern. But dianas aura of invincibility is shattered when a moment of life & death decision-making forever changes the lives of the best friends. Studio: Magnolia Pict Hm Ent Release Date: 08/19/2008 Starring: Uma Thurman Eva Amurri Run time: 90 minutes Rating: RSimilar DVD Movies
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