Culture Clash Classic (Witness (DVD))

Member Name: mcader

Product:	Witness (DVD)
Date:	12/02/09 (7 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Sensitive, artistic thriller

Disadvantages: None

Artistically and sensitively filmed, this unconventional, moving and occasionally light-hearted thriller depicts the prejudices and differing values between the modern world and a community of Amish people (who reject the modern lifestyle and material comforts for a rural timelessness and spiritual community existence).

Harrison Ford and Kelly McGillis (Top Gun) excel as two characters meeting across a divide....

An Amish mother and child venture out of their small farm to witness the sights of the modern world and instead the child witnesses a murder and the evil brutality of mankind. This brings them into contact with good-cop John Book and his brutal, unpleasant world. When an internal narcotics conspiracy becomes known by Book through the boy, they are rapidly endangered and Book narrowly escapes with the mother and boy (and his life) to their community. Here he is accepted as a good man (with his duty to the boy) and recovers to learn of his partner's murder and an inability to deal with his one-time friend and now corrupt chief who will come for them.

The film is observant in re-capturing a sense of the events from a child's (Samuel's) perspective, gazing impressionably out at the strange behaviours and activities of the modern world. We see the police department through his fresh eyes like a mind receiving and questioning a world before it becomes part of it. This is an area of excellence in the film; it is full of what seems real and unreal. The people rushing around in the station before the murder could be seen as unreal in their activity while the angel statue is evidence of the real, a tribute to the spirit of mankind or an embodiment of the co-operating struggle for goodness or salvation. Likewise is the feel-good barn-raising scene that brings together the community (for a newly-wed couple) and the way at the showdown Samuel rings the bell to quickly summon the local inhabitants in a time of need. These facets of a simple rustic lifestyle are a sense of reality and community, although at the expense of modern comfort and excitement. By the end, Book is familiar with the attributes of both.

A scene where Book, now one of the Amish, beats up an ignorant and prejudiced youth is especially powerful. The message of the film is not to begrudge or fear something until you have lived and experienced its different perspective, and also to avoid succumbing to the same prejudice in order to protect one's beliefs. Book finds that he has value beyond his cop role and something to offer as a member of their world; his skill and strength as a carpenter (a side the real-life carpenter Ford looks particularly at home with).

The contrasts are naturally conveyed and the scenes are realistic (there is no orchestration of the gun battles). The spiritually resonant soundtrack contributes at times of emotional sincerity and excitement (Maurice Jarre who made Ghost so magical) heightening the poignancy of moments like the problematic love between Book and Rachel. Book is careful about becoming involved as the strength of their attraction must ultimately entail a heavy sacrifice for one of them; an abandonment of a way of life. The song played in the car while they dance is an appropriate one - that whatever the difference in knowledge and background the mutual desire is what binds and what is important. In their relationship there is a sense of how we are entrenched and almost prisoners of our environment, with the rules and restrictions of a community that accompany them. The involving sense of location about the film admirably re-enforces this effect. However such rules are there only to ensure against a misdirection of desires that can lead us astray (a belief shared by the strict community elders and Book in his modern role as law-enforcer). It is almost Thomas Hardy-esque: that although we seem at times to be prisoners of our natural desires and our environment, there is still the essential need for a fulfilling role in a society and the duty it involves.

The Amish belief in the natural, immemorial conditions of mankind, is what we witness in the film. The character Book actually slips remarkably easy into a new side to his life with them. The whole tenderness and delicacy of witnessing the understandings between the worldly Book and the homely Amish is only enhanced by the performances, especially of Ford and McGillis as a suitably earthy, expectant yet proud Rachel. They remain resolutely in-character (think of a cop in an Amish community?) so the film at no time becomes over-sentimental. There is also restraint and a menacing undercurrent throughout (that occasionally mars the light-hearted relations) until the genuinely bad cops intrude in their smart, inappropriate suits. Ever-present evil literally walks down into their peace and among it where they will shatter it. The action is suitably gripping and the climax is not excessively arranged and yet it is not conventional. Ultimately confronted by such goodness in the Amish, the chief's intentions become incredible and his insensible façade crumbles away with his modern corruption. The misdirection that is evil (that 'loses the meaning') is shown up against such a meaningful light.

Witness is not only an excellent character-driven experience of encounters between two sets of cultural values (that shows the insensitivity of modern 'progress') and a love story across this divide but it's also a study of kindred goodness and an evil born out of one world and diminished in another. Classic, worthwhile, atmospheric and a cautionary reminder (to city folk!).

Summary: A study of kindred goodness and an evil born out of one world and diminished in another.