The Lodge (Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz, 2020)

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mfunk9786
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Re: The Lodge (Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz, 2020)

#51 Post by mfunk9786 » Tue May 05, 2020 10:04 am

mfunk9786 wrote:
Thu Apr 30, 2020 3:06 pm
Update: Digital release will be day and date with the Blu-ray, May 5th
Looks like this is on Hulu as of today! So no need to purchase unless you're like me and pre-ordered the Blu-ray for some reason. Glad I supported the movie in some small way, but who buys discs in 2020? *dodges rotten fruits and vegetables*

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Monterey Jack
Joined: Fri Jan 12, 2018 1:27 am

Re: The Lodge (Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz, 2020)

#52 Post by Monterey Jack » Wed Jul 08, 2020 9:39 pm

Query about character motivation...
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I get why the kids are gaslighting Keough's character -- to drive her insane because they find her "usurping" they dead mother's place -- but what, exactly, was their escape plan supposed to be? What did they expect was going to happen when they drove an already psychologically-fragile woman into additional stress, when they were all trapped in a remote, snowbound house with no possibility of getting away from her? That seems like a fatal narrative flaw, and I get that kids aren't especially smart about playing the "long con", and mostly care about immediate gratification over perceived slights, but it's an aspect of the film that's bugging the hell out of me. A smarter plot would have had an "escape hatch" built into the situation that was shut in some way the kids could not anticipate, neatly sealing their fates in a Hitchcockian/EC Comics manner.


Other than this, I found the film's clinical, wintery atmosphere to be consistently enthralling, and Keough's performance was superb, but the screenplay could have used a polish to sand away the rough edges that mar the otherwise powerful conclusion.

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therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: The Lodge (Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz, 2020)

#53 Post by therewillbeblus » Wed Jul 08, 2020 10:01 pm

I think you answered your own question in your spoilerbox. I felt the film was eerie in how accurate it displayed the general psychological development of children of those ages, which is why
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even though I held them responsible there is still a part of me that, after more than a decade of clinical experience with children, cannot honestly parse out what are the warning signs for sociopathy and what are just age-appropriate egocentrism and normal displacement of trauma responses. It’s a mix that doesn’t make it easy for anyone, because cases can be made for both.

The film has many strengths, but its presentation of an ethical dilemma through using narrative form and style to immerse the audience in multiple conflicting subjective experiences, switching perspectives on us and then bringing us out into an objective grey area in the end, is its greatest achievement.

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Mr Sausage
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 9:02 pm
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Re: The Lodge (Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz, 2020)

#54 Post by Mr Sausage » Wed Jul 08, 2020 11:15 pm

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One of the things I liked about the movie is how the kids didn’t fully understand what they were playing with. They didn’t grasp the force of the madness they were courting. There was no escape plan because they didn’t think they’d need to escape. They thought they’d bully her until she had some kind of weeping, girly breakdown and then call their dad to come to take her away (tho’ the little girl inadvertently drains the battery on the cell phone talking to the dad every day, so the film does contain what you claim it doesn’t). What we see but they don’t is the depths of the trauma they’re calling forth. The film would be only a trashy thriller, well-made but disposable, if the kids were merely slick, expert manipulators foiled by an unexpected kink in their plan. How much more disturbing that the kids are doomed not by some overlooked ironic detail, but because they aren’t equipped to comprehend the depths of what they were plumbing and took their safety for granted in a way middle-to-upper class kids often do. The film is worthwhile precisely because it resists the neat packaging of an Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode.

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