MovieChat Forums > Monster's Ball (2002) Discussion > My personal review

My personal review

posted 15 years ago by alohahome
5 replies | jump to latest

This movie was not a big favorite with audiences so I knew there had to be something meaningful in it that the shallow public could not see or was not able to see or perhaps refused to see.
It has one of the loveliest soundtracks I've ever heard which clings to the soul with a lingering and misty melancoly.
A movie for for those who have known suffering.
The Monster's Ball is a very bleak film yet it's also quite rare in that it's truly unpredictable.
You won't find Hollywood trappings here. This is an Indy film, thoughtful with symbolism and a profound message. This movie caused a knee jerk reaction in parts of the black community, causing calls for boycotting and some racial tension.
Simply put, a white racist death row prison guard, through a set of tragic and complex circumstances, begins to fall in love with the black wife of an inmate that he recently executed, of which she is totally unaware. Their anguished bond is the fact that they both have lost young sons.
There is some blunt sexual content, however it's mainly queasy and uncomfortably painful rather than erotic. Still, this motion picture is not intended for children.
This movie somehow captures the mood of yearning reconcillation between two devastated souls who discover they have absolutely nowhere else left to turn, except to each other.
This is a startling "feel bad" movie that is able to say: tragedy will not be permitted to become the end of all hope. Rather it states: When you're at the end of your rope, letting go can be the best thing you can do.
Ultimately consoling in a way that seeks to unlock a warm, rainy night in your heart where abandoned innocence is finally given a chance to be regained.
Atmospheric and moody with a poetic and mystical resolution that leaves you with a suffocating shimmer of hope.
A perfect movie? Not at all, but a fascinating exploration for those who refuse to cast stones.
"The title comes from a custom in medieval England where prisoners awaiting execution were called monsters. The night before their execution, their jailers would hold a feast known as a monster's ball as their final farewell." (Wikipedia)

[–] Emmjewels 14 years ago

was the sex scene really needed here, and if so, why not implement it 'after' they'd gotten married (if they were going to sometime down the road)? I ask this question because they haven't even known each other that long (imagine what would have happened had she found out he'd had a sexually transmitted disease?), and it didn't take long for them to come together sexually.

P.S. About that now famous sex scene, was I the only one to notice that starting with the anal intercourse scene Leticia really did not look comfortable or happy (I'm quite sure many will look at that scene and say, "well then why was she moaning", but this didn't look like pleasure to me but actually pain, and does moaning always constitute 'pleasure'?), and on one occasion turned her head around and gave Sonny a very angry look, and when the vaginal intercourse was about to take place she seemed almost 'surprised' (look closely at the scene and you'll see what I'm talking about, hopefully), could it be because of the way it was done (without the use of a condom from anus to vagina)?

[–] alohahome 14 years ago

It seems to me that this was a secular movie about immoral people more or less. There were no religious undertones that I could detect.
Two lost souls in torment from unwise lifestyles. Will they find salvation? Since this is fiction, who really knows?
As far as the sex scene goes, my impression was that it was impersonal doggy style intercourse, not anal. Deep south macho guys generally shun anal sex, viewing it as being a gay practice.

[–] cheerupemokid_797 14 years ago

Have you ever had sex Emmjewels? Because where the hell was this anal sex you are talking about? Just because a man is behind you doesn't mean anal sex. Have you never heard of doggy style?

Its funny how the colors of the real world only seem really real when you viddy them on the screen

[–] cheerupemokid_797 14 years ago

[–] lacedemonians 14 years ago

Overtly, this movie is about a Southern racist white man (Hank) whose empty life centers on his hatreds and his duty as a prison guard who begins a pained relationship with a beautiful black woman (Leticia). At the overt level, the story is about a man coming to reject the hatred passed down to him as a family tradition that destroyed the gentler people in his family (his mother, wife, and son) and turned him into an emotional robot.

But I can understand why black men especially did not like this movie.

At a visceral level, the story is about a white man who is part of a system keeping black men under control (i.e. the symbolism of a family of prison guards) that executes (conquers) a black everyman, a system that sets up circumstances leading to the death of the black everyman’s only son (as well as the death of the white man’s only son), and a system that puts an exceptionally beautiful black woman in desperate emotional and financial circumstances and thus made sexually vulnerable (i.e. for sexual conquest). The symbolism of Hank inserting his spoon into Leticia’s mouth was about as naked and raw as is possible.

“There is NO such thing as a free lunch.” - Milton Friedman