I have watched this movie several times and reflected on the negative criticisms of others on this message board. And while I agree that some of the performances were flawed and that an evening spent watching it can hardly be called entertainment, still, in terms of its writer's objectives, which are summed up in Rolf's concluding VO (which I quote below), in my opinion Affliction it is a superb accomplishment.
I write thusly because I as a child -- as I must suppose the writer was also -- was beaten often and most violently by a totally out-of-control father who himself was the product of his father's violence. Which is not to say that I did not afford ample provocations for sound thrashings (or possibly a more effective form of chastisement, for, as the proverbial fool, I indeed kept returning to my follies), still there are limits. Nevertheless, I have thought often of the effect these beatings must have had in shaping my personality and destiny -- and being now some 85 years of age, I have had a very long post, post graduate course in introspection.
Whatever, the writer's conclusions did indeed resonate with me, and well written they were indeed:
ROLFE (V.O.)
The historical facts are known by everyone -- all of Lawford, all of New Hampshire, some of Massachusetts.
Facts do not make history. Our stories, Wade's and mine, describe the lives of boys and men for thousands of years, boys who were beaten by their fathers, whose capacity for love and trust was crippled almost at birth and whose best hope, if any, for connection with other human beings lay in an elegiac detachment, as if life were over.
It's how we keep from destroying in turn our own children and terrorizing the women who have the misfortune to love us; how we absent ourselves from the tradition of male violence; how we decline the seduction of revenge.
I write thusly because I as a child -- as I must suppose the writer was also -- was beaten often and most violently by a totally out-of-control father who himself was the product of his father's violence. Which is not to say that I did not afford ample provocations for sound thrashings (or possibly a more effective form of chastisement, for, as the proverbial fool, I indeed kept returning to my follies), still there are limits. Nevertheless, I have thought often of the effect these beatings must have had in shaping my personality and destiny -- and being now some 85 years of age, I have had a very long post, post graduate course in introspection.
Whatever, the writer's conclusions did indeed resonate with me, and well written they were indeed:
ROLFE (V.O.)
The historical facts are known by everyone -- all of Lawford, all of New Hampshire, some of Massachusetts.
Facts do not make history. Our stories, Wade's and mine, describe the lives of boys and men for thousands of years, boys who were beaten by their fathers, whose capacity for love and trust was crippled almost at birth and whose best hope, if any, for connection with other human beings lay in an elegiac detachment, as if life were over.
It's how we keep from destroying in turn our own children and terrorizing the women who have the misfortune to love us; how we absent ourselves from the tradition of male violence; how we decline the seduction of revenge.