The Ice Storm

I watched The Ice Storm last night. Directed by Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain, The Incredible Hulk, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), the film has good momentum throughout the picture, which is in part due to a great cast.


It is difficult, I realize now, to write something about a movie while making considerations about whether or not the audience has watched the movie. So, from day 1, if you haven´t seen the movie, which will always be in the title of the post, please refrain from reading the post. OK, that´s settled so lets talk about the end of The Ice Storm and how the poor kid dies.

My girlfriend commented to me after the movie that I hate it when people die in movies, that I find it even a bit tacky. I cannot remember ever saying that, which is just one more good reason to have a film blog. So, the son of Weaver and Co., who is fascinated by molecules, Wendy, and ice storms gets electrocuted while sitting on a rail running along a tree-lined road.

It is so important that every movie that kills someone has a reason for doing so, either because it is absolutely plot necessary (let´s take the example of The Matrix - in the first movie, all those people get unplugged, which must happen to reinforce the act of beytrayal) or because it has a proper intellectual context with which we can discuss death. Dramas, bad dramas, have a tendency to just kill someone (because death is traumatic) and then see what happens, like a situational drama. I find traumatic film deaths without proper intellectual contexts with which to understand them abusive to me, the audience, and this is probably the largest discredit to the film industry (does it start with the nature of film production and cutting? Fake sets?).

So, what is the intellectual context of the death of Mikey, son of Weaver & Co.? "We have the Mayday, Mayday!" line, we´ve got cold scientific molecules, and we´ve got a lack of family communication. I´m going to say that molecules part intellectually justifies, though makes no less sad or traumatic, the death of Mikey, in the sense that death is in the natural course of molecular structures. Unfortunately, I just remembered the line about perfect space in the mind, which Mikey tells to his brother. Perfect space doesn´t exist outside the mind i.e. the world isn´t perfect, trauma happens, Mikey dies. That is a total copout explanation given to us by Mr. Lee, but molecules works for me. Mayday Mayday is interesting because really, that toy is a voice from the depths of human misery and helplessness - I like this juxtapostion very much, the voice of human history playing through a toy soldier - so it is as if Mikey experiences these depths, unknowingly, as he explores the ice storm.

So, let´s talk about something else.