Saw Animal Kingdom, an incredibly tense crime film. It opens with the protagonist, Jay, watching TV with his mother snoozing beside him. Then the paramedics show up because no, his mother is not snoozing, she's dead of an overdose. This sets us up for a film which will pull the rug out from under us, which will not let us relax. After his mother's death, Jay stays with his grandmother and his uncles who are all bank robbers in the grubby, tattoos and guns style. These are not romantic gentlemen robbers, but desperate, angry men with emotional disorders. The film is setting them up to be the animals whose kingdom Jay has entered.
There's a simple animal motif throughout the film, with lions showing up here and there and later, as Jay is beginning to question his own ability to survive in this jungle, even an ironic baby lion wearing a silly little crown. Jay does not want to be king but in this brutal world he must be the strongest if he wants to survive. Really rattling movie. The family members stalk around kitchens and gas stations. Eye contact is far more threatening than raised voices. Everything's very brutal. But even the animalistic family is shown to be as nothing compared to the trained attack dogs of the police and lawyers who are casually and indifferently cruel.
The camera work is great too. We're always recoiling away from Jay's family and sneaking up on Jay himself, stalking him as he feels his family is hunting him. Later in the film, things have become so tense that calm feels ominous. At this point, the camera switches to flat, static shots, with Jay and his family sitting ominously still or perhaps petrified. Good stuff.
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