TIGAER-DESIGN.COM_.v5 – Digital Art by Christian Hecker

Here we have a movie that is trying to get behind why kids (or people in general) go on a rampage. Most prominently in schools. It touches a subject matter that, from my point of view, will never be fully dissectible. There are just far too many variables playing into the question we are always asking… ‘why’. Did this movie shed some light onto the issue or does it leave us knowing exactly as much as we did before? Lets see.

The story is told from the point of view of a worn out woman. Tilda Swinton brilliantly portraits that lady, Eva, with her very own style of acting. She manages it to really show the viewer how down that character really is. That poor woman is pretty much going through hell. But why? Now the movie is told with flashbacks. At the beginning it’s a little confusing to follow, where the movie actually is at a given point. In the past or in the present? It’s well enough done to follow though. It just requires you to really focus on the film. We follow Eva in trying to get herself back into life. Trying to socialize again. She gets looks from everyone she meets on the streets. That’s something the movie does good. Certain points overdo that a little though. Nonetheless it’s Tilda Swinton’s great work that makes you feel awkward along with the character she plays. The viewer soon understands that something must have happened in the past.

As soon as the flashbacks kick in, we get to see the earlier Eva. She falls in love with Franklin (John C. Reilly) and they decide to form a relationship. Soon she gets pregnant and Kevin is born. Right there you can see that Eva does not feel too comfortable. Nonetheless she accepts her natural duties as a mother and takes care of the kid. Just like any other mother would do. She does not do anything different or wrong. The baby though acts weird. It cannot stop crying and drives Eva crazy. Several flashbacks later we see Eva trying to play with a now young boy. The kid still acts weird, and no matter what Eva does, she always gets ignored or (to use a trendier word) dissed. Every now and then Kevin throws her a bone and does what she demands. Making her feel like she finally got through to him. The next moment he’s back to evil again.

That procedure we see throughout the movie. Eva trying to be a good mother. She is doing nothing wrong. Every other child would love it to have her as a mother. Not Kevin though. On the other hand he seems to really love his father. And Franklin cannot understand why Eva has so many problems. At some point in the movie Kevin is even trying to play out his two parents against each other. And right there you can see that the kid isn’t stupid. He is a highly intelligent boy that really knows what he’s doing. Does he know why he is doing it? I would say no.

While these flashback bring us closer to what happened to Eva, we watch her struggling in the present. she’s having a hard time and actually no one to talk to. Aside of that she doesn’t seem to be a very talky/open person anyway. Which makes me wonder about the movie’s title. Because they actually NEVER seriously talk about Kevin. Yes both parents know there is an issue. Eva more than Franklin. But Eva never gets her mouth and heart open. There were moments in the movie where I screamed at her “now start talking!!!”. She swallows everything. All the indignity and ignorance from her son and her husband. And that is what makes this movie so incredibly hard to watch. I personally know people that, for the sake of their lifes, wouldn’t talk about something personal. So Eva is not a stupid character. She’s just a character like any other, with her own qualities. And talking is not one of her qualities. She also never gets loud. And sometimes as a parent you have to get loud. Otherwise your kid will not understand what’s right and wrong.

After seeing Kevin growing up to be a teenager, and the closer we come to the end of the film, we can see where it’s headed. Kevin decides to go on a rampage on his school. And that’s what Eva is trying to deal with. The aftermath of what’s happened. While Eva certainly is not the strongest mother ever, I personally could not see her do anything wrong with how she tried to raise Kevin. The only real flaw I saw simply was that she never got out of herself and talked to someone. I personally am not very open and talky person too and can see why Eva can’t too. But still, if something seems wrong with my kid… I’ll go out and try to find out what’s going on. I, most certainly, would talk to my partner about it.

At the end of the movie Eva is visiting Kevin in jail. She’s afraid of him, and we can see that throughout the movie. But she still cannot/refuses to let him go. She feels guilty for what he’s done. She still wants to understand him. And for a split second, in Kevin’s eyes, we get a glimpse of understanding from his side. A short thought process of “maybe I did do something really bad”. That is at least what I saw.

Man this movie was a hard sitting. Not because it’s a bad movie. It tries to ask valid questions. It’s not able to answer all of them. which is good because it leaves room for interpretation and discussion. Tilda Swinton delivers a fantastic job. The kids who played Kevin were great too. There is no way you will like Kevin. He’s played so wonderfully evil that it sometimes feels unreal. Children can be very cruel.

On a technical level there is not much to complain. Eva’s depiction/look after the incident uses some great make-up work, to make her look like she’s going through hell. The music choices at some parts of the film felt a little odd. As if they tried to cheer up the dark happenings of the film a bit. It adds a nice contrast though.

Ultimately there are some questions left. Do some people get born evil? Are there some people that are just plain evil, without any chance to ever fully psychologically understand why? Even these people don’t understand why they behave and act the way they do. They just do without thinking about consequences. It’s a hard topic, especially for a movie.

Nonetheless I think the movie mostly succeeds. It makes you think about the subject matter. It gives you a hint of how the family of a rampage shooting person probably looks. Without any distortion by the media or some psychologist who thinks he can explain the world for you. Does the movie explain why these mentally ill people do what they do? No. The movie doesn’t even try to speculate. It just shows reality. And some things just cannot be explained.

7.7/10

We Need To Talk About Kevin on IMDb

Here we go again! “The Dark Side of the Mind” is the latest Exhibit release by The Luminarium Artgroup. #19’s topic “The Dark Side of the Mind” pretty much allows a wide range of interpretation – which the artists used very well. Again this release is filled with all kinds of different artworks that will inspire you for sure! So go now! Check it out!

The Luminarium: Website – Deviantart – Shadowness

Regards

(for english please scroll down)

Anfang 2012 wurde ich von Galileo Press kontaktiert und gefragt ob ich denn Interesse hätte an einer Workshop DVD mitzuarbeiten. Anfangs hatte ich meine zweifel, ob sich meine Arbeitsweise wirklich gut erklären lassen würde, da meine Techniken doch ein ziemliches Chaos sind. Nach einigen Überlegungen und Gesprächen mit Projektbetreuer Hendrik Wevers, habe ich dann doch ein paar Details heraus filtern können, welche durchaus ein Workshop-Kapitel ergeben könnten. Mitte des Jahres habe ich dem Studio einen Besuch abgestattet, um die Aufnahmen zu tätigen. Das Umfeld war super und sehr hilfsbereit. Gerade wenn man solche Aufnahmen das erste mal macht, ist eine helfende und geduldige Hand sehr hilfreich. Konzentriert habe ich mich, für meine beiden Kapitel, auf das verbessern von 3d Landschafts-Rendern, Texturierung und Optische Effekte in Photoshop. Auch bei diesem Projekt konnte ich wieder einiges lernen.

Für die Aufnahmen sind zwei Bilder entstanden, an denen ich einige interessante Techniken erklären konnte.

Galileo Press – Die Tricks Der Photoshop-Profis 3

Amazon.de – Die Tricks Der Photoshop-Profis 3

Even if the DVD is produced in German language, I want to give some info in English anyway. So it came that I got mail from Galileo Press, early 2012. Well known for its software training books and dvds, they asked me if I’d be interested to do two chapters for a new release. I hesitated at first, asking myself if there is anything I could fluidly explain. Since, to be honest, my working process is a real messy thing. After talking to project manager Hendrik Wevers, I came up with a few ideas. A lot of planning and preparations went into the setup of the chapters. At the Galileo Press studio I had the chance to record all my chapters. Thanks to the very helpful staff, that was always there if questions or problems came up. For my part I’m explaining how to detail out 3d landscape renders. Texturing and the creation of optical effects in Photoshop. For the DVD I created two pictures that helped me explaining how to get certain details. All in all it was an interesting experience. And again I can say that I learned a lot.

THE ELLENSHAW CORRIDOR

This one could be seen as a sister project to my ‘From Here I Can Almost See The Stars‘. I basically used the same city scene, along with a few changes. Originally the picture was created to work out some material, I could use for chapters on a German workshop DVD (more info), I got invited to do. The energy spheres and ship engine trails for example. I previously used energy spheres, as a detail in my work, and really liked how it turned out. On the other hand I wanted to experiment with a darker toned atmosphere. Work with harder contrasts. Which turned out rather good in this picture.

You could say it’s another generic scifi cityscape scene. Nonetheless I hope the lighting and perspective is at least something that stands out in this one. As usual I used Vue to create a base of operation. Several separated renders helped me to get in all the elements I wanted. A lot of Photoshop then helped to get in the details, that make this picture look alive.

It does look like a place you can easily get lost in. And our guy there is probably thinking the same. But I’m sure he knows his ways around this place.

5000 wide – Vue – Photoshop

If the German language is in your skillset, here is some info about the workshop.

Print Detail

Creation History

The artwork on:
Deviantart – Artstation – Drawcrowd – CGSociety

Regards

First of all I have to thank Brian Neufang for sending me a festival screener version of the film. The film is not yet officially released and tries to raise some additional resources via Kickstarter. So, if you’re interested in backing a movie project that delivers some great quality… head to the kickstarter page for a trailer. But what’s the movie about?

The movie starts with introducing us to the two main characters of the film. Both of them are salesmen, who try to get their own invented and manufactured products, into the world. You immediately see that these two guys believe in their products and work really hard to promote their business. One of the guys is Matt (Dallas Roberts). He’s the inventor and basically the brain behind all the products. The other guy is Sam (Jeremy Renner). He is kind of the muscle and drive that keeps things going. Sometimes that ‘drive’ goes a little too far. Sam and Matt have some tiny gambling problems. Sam moreso than Matt. So it happens that their company runs out of cash and tries everything to get money to keep things rolling. The gambling part doesn’t exactly work out and Matt falls into a hole. Their business goes down and both have to go parted ways. To make things even worse, one of their products gets ripped off by another, much bigger, company.

Pretty much on the bottom, with their dreams ruined, we see both of them trying to find a way through all of this. Every now and then we have scenes that bring the viewer closer to the characters. They talk about their fears and how they try to deal with them. Until Matt gets that one creative spark, that could change it all. Immediately he’s going after it and tries to catch that spark. He works very hard to get a prototype done, and when he got it, things start to roll. This is the fun part of the film. And no… it suddenly doesn’t all run smoothly to Matt’s and Sam’s favour. There still are some rocks to climb for them. Especially the money situation always throws them back. Matt’s wife Gina (Ayelet Zurer) comes into play. She left Matt earlier in the movie, as part of the downward spiral, because of his gambling. She tried to help him wherever possible. Matt disappointed her too many times. Now with that new idea and product, she wants to be on board. She gets together all possible cash she can muster up, and offers it to Matt and Sam, under the condition that she will be a part of the team. Matt and Sam have no other choice than to agree. Together they go on to get their product out into the world.

At that point it’s fair to say that all the actors have a nice chemistry going. All the scenes have a very natural feel. There isn’t too much ‘hollywood’ in this movie, even if it got its happy end. You see characters suffer. You see chacaters fail. On the other hand the movie also generates a lot of funny situations and has some good humour going. Knowing people who run their own business, I can relate to the problems these guys run into. There are times that are a constant shuffle and then there are times where things pick up a bit again. Ups and downs.

Some parts of the movie feel a little rushed and the ending felt adequate but a little too soon. Once their business picked up, we don’t get to see much of the aftermath. I would have liked to see how they managed to land the one or another big deal. But maybe that would have made the movie’s running time too long. So yes, there are pros and contras to everything. You could also argue that this story, of people overcoming business problems and rising to the top, isn’t a new one. And yes, you are right. If it’s done in such a charming way, with such charismatic actors and characters, it just works though. These are the stories that spread hope. They tell and inspire you to not give up on your ideas and dreams, as long as you are willing to work for them. And while these sayings are an old hat… they still are true. And this movie captures exactly that truth of no pain no gain, in a really nice and charming way.

A 7.9/10 from me.

So, if you like what you’ve read, applaud the production for its efforts to stay independent or you’re just interested in the subject matter, head to the kickstarter page and show some support, to help the movie getting a proper release. It surely deserves it.

Ingenious on IMDb