Filmikaze!

By: Boaz Yakin (director, writer)

Starring: Josh Lucas, Jacqueline Bisset, Lukas Haas, Adam Brody

The devastating legacy of a liaison between a concentration camp inmate and a Nazi doctor reflects on the lives of her sons.

If there is only one thing to be said about Death in Love, it is that it was absolutely not what I expected. From the very first moments, the film is unfailingly blunt about the human condition as it twists its timeline in on itself to present the idea that sins are never quite atoned, but rather just handed off to new generations.

While there were a few lulls to be found in this one, it does an excellent job of painting the strange and familiar with the same brush, and the payoff at the end is well worth the wait. All of the acting is superb, Jacqueline Bisset turning in a particularly compelling performance as a mother violently struggling with her own sense of self in the wake of her wartime experiences. There is nothing soft or charming about Death in Love: this isn’t about the fragility of the human spirit, it’s about the rawness of being alive, and it holds absolutely nothing back to that end.

If you’re easily unsettled by surgical imagery, you might want to take a pass, as there are a few scenes that are quite graphic in that regard, and you should know going in that this isn’t going to make you feel good. What it is, however, is unflinchingly honest, memorable and often surprising.