The Childhood of a Leader

Greetings again from the darkness. Brady Corbet has established a pretty nice career as an actor (Melancholia, Funny Games), and along comes his feature film debut as a writer/director (co-written with Mona Fastvold). In this day of remakes and reboots, this one is anything but. The "Overture" sets the mood with video clips of the WWI aftermath and the explosive score from Scott Walker quickly establishes itself as a character unto itself.

Subsequent title cards are broken into three "Tantrums", as we witness the ever-escalating inappropriate behavior from young Prescott (Tom Sweet). In what on the surface could be classified as a nature vs nurture expose', the film leaves little doubt that Prescott is rebelling against the monotony of his environment and the disengaged parents to which he is tethered. However, it also seems evident that young Prescott is inherently "off". He seems to be cold and emotionally removed as he engages in battles of will with his parents … his father (Liam Cunningham) a US diplomat knee-deep in negotiations that will lead to the Treaty of Versailles, and his mother (Berenice Bejo), a self-described "citizen of the world".

Two obvious film comparisons would be The Omen (1976) and We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011). The ominous music and settings leave little doubt that we are headed somewhere very dark here, though it's not in the religious sense of The Omen and it's more global than the intimacy of 'Kevin'. Thinking of this as evil in the making would be a just description, though a different title might have held the ending a bit longer.

Support work is provided by Stacy Martin as the French teacher and Yolanda Moreau as the housekeeper who has moments of connection with the challenging Prescott, but Robert Pattison fans will be surprised at how little screen time he has – especially for dual roles.

Young Tom Sweet is fascinating to watch in a very tough role for a child actor, and director Corbet proves he is a filmmaker we should follow closely. His visual acumen is something special, and offsets a script that could have used a bit of polishing. The movie will probably prove divisive – either you will find it mesmerizing and creepy, or you simply won't connect at all. That's often the case with a creative and bold project.

Well, it took about 2 years but I finally got around to watching this. The trailer was hands down my favorite of 2016. The fierce Scott Walker composition cut to all the stunning shots hooked me hard, and induced goosebumps every time I watched it.

Let me say right off the bat that it is quite an odd film in the sense that it truly feels like an incredible pilot episode for a series, all building towards something that feels monstrous, but just as you reach that point, the movie is over. While this element is probably not for everyone, I was cracking up in supportive amusement during the closing sequence - I personally admired it's absence of a common folk sort of finale.

Setting that oddity aside, which could be considered a pretty major flaw in some people's eyes, everything about this film is masterfully done... the whole cast kills. This was my intro to Berenice Bejo and she made a MARK! Simultaneously beautiful and elegant, and then, at turn of a hat, heinous and witchlike. Liam Cunningham is as strong and actor as possible, shown here through stoicism with an underlying weasliness to his character. Stacy Martin is intoxicating and graceful as usual and young TOM SWEET steals the show, flawlessly delivering as a child imprisoned in the confines of his own royal sort of upbringing. Every motion, every murmur that he delivers hits right on the mark.

The film is absolutely gorgeous too. It's shot and directed beautifully in a very disciplined manner, and I'd use the same adjectives for the pacing. All the wardrobe, styling, and environments are tastefully chosen and displayed. And, of course, the frickin' legend SCOTT WALKER's score is intense and awesome - I wish there was more of his abrasive orchestral cuts but the film doesn't really call for it outside of the opening and the finale - I'll take what I can get.

All I can say is after viewing this and based off of what I can tell so far about Corbet's upcoming second film, VOX LUX, he could very well be one of the new darlings of American filmmakers! Childhood of a Leader comes off as a huge risk to make in this era but he made it happen and I see it as a very ballsy move for a debut. Can't wait to see Corbet's second film VOX LUX starring Natalie Portman and Jude Law in theaters this December - I think he has a masterful catalogue in him waiting to be unleashed!

I like Liam Cunningham and Bérénice Bejo very much, and it is also necessary to say that cinematography and art direction are quite good in The Childhood of a Leader. However, all those qualities are not enough for delivering a good movie. It is definitely not. Not only because of its sluggish boring pace, with different events of varied interest that do not compose together a deep portrait. Perhaps, the very general idea is even worse than that. The script was supposedly adapted or inspired in a story by Sartre, which I have never read, and, then, I do not know if French thinker shared the filmmaker's sins. Anyway, the very idea that a fascist leader eventually follows his authoritarian steps due a permissive education and upper-class family dysfunctional relationship during his coming-of-age years is a bizarre, stupid and childish understanding. I could not understand if fictional Prescott - who director Brady Corbet clarified that was neitler Hitler nor Mussolini - became a Füher or duce in France, Hungary, the United States or anywhere else, and I believe that confusion is intentional, but I do know that fascism does not rise because there is an individual with Prescott's traits and that has been mistaken for a girl. Addressing psychologically fascism as consequence of a troubled mind of a leader is no more intelligent and mature than portraying Nazis as zombies, vampires os extraterrestrials, as mainsteam popcorn flicks often do. We know that Pattinson's character was anti-Islamic and anti-Semitic, but even his possible harmful personal influence over the kid does not appear in the film (differently from the boy's precocious sex drive towards Stacy Martin's character, for instance). Additionally, the general and widespread (not just circumscribed in the family's personal circle) jingoist and racist prejudice feeling in society - and the hatred for the humiliation of the Versailles Treaty - would have been focused on if it were a consistent film about Fascist genesis. To resume, the choice of a horror music score (composed by Scott Walker) does not contribute for acknowledging this movie's political seriousness either.

Really this is a terrible film. It is ostensibly based on Sartre's "Childhood of a leader" about a child who grows up to be a Stalin or Hitler like character. The problems with this film derive from the maker veering off of Sartre's narrative -- because they clearly did not understand what Sartre was doing.

First of all the disciplinary conditions as well as the "seen but not heard" views of children's roles were typical for that period, and in fact the great majority of the population did not turn out to be fascist or socialist/communist leaders

Wow. That was amazing.

The story revolves around a wealthy American (or citizens of the world, as The Mother calls them) family at the end of WW1 in France. The movie centers on the kid, Prescott. He's not a "normal" kid, I guess. He's been acting up ever since they moved to another town. He takes French lessons from the teacher, Ada (played excellently by Stacy Martin), which The Father disapproves of, because he can't speak the language himself and he feels The Father works for the American government, right under President Jimmy Carter, so he goes on a lost of work trips, and he doesn't really care about getting to know the people of the town as much as The Mother does.

At the beginning of the film the kid got caught throwing rocks at the church members ("A Sign of Thing to Come) and the movie just goes from there. The film is divided in chapter in a really cool way (First Tantrum, Second Tantrum etc.). The whole film is stylized really old school, e.g there's an overture at the beginning and etc. That brings me to the score, oh my god. The score is amazing, it's very unsettling. Quite possibly the best score I've heard this year, Knight of Cups is the only competition.

All of the performances are fantastic, especially Tom Sweet as Prescott, Bèrènice Bejo as The Mother and Stacy Martin as Ada, or The Teacher. Robert Pattinson is great too as a friend of the family and widower Charles, in the few scenes he shows up in.

I can't believe this is Brady Corbet's directorial debut, because the film is directed so well. I knew he's a great actor (Funny Games U.S.), I had no idea he could direct. I cannot wait for his next project because this is one of the better directed films I've seen in a while. Everything felt unsettlingly natural and real, the cinematography was fantastic and all the actors were great, even the kid. Or especially the kid.

Oh yeah, by the way, this is not a horror movie, it has some horror-ish and surreal (although it never goes full Eraserhead or Enemy) elements and it's very unsettling but it's not a horror movie. I think the horror-ish stuff lies in the things we don't see, or the things to come.

Oh, and no spoiler but the ending was so amazing, holy crap.

This is the third, possibly second, best movie I've seen so far this year and I'm hoping for Oscar buzz for this film at the end of the year, but it's not likely that will happen though.

9/10. It's excellent.