Atonement, Reopened

Just to continue Faizan's discussion as I was able to watch it this weekend:

What *was* interesting was the theme of history, memory and the variations of a narrative or event. The interrogation of this theme was conducted on several levels: Briony's "reading"/"misreading"/"rereading/writing" of the relationship b/n her elder sister Cecilia and Robbie. The film returns to pivotal collective memories again and again from the different character viewpoints. Cecilia "sees" what she sees through her adolescent desire, longing (she's a moony, tempermental adolescent) and ignorance/innocence/alienation. In fact, all the children in this episode are intertwined in the neglect/predatory behaviors of absent/present adults (i.e. the visiting children).

Robbie's recollection of that moment at the fountain is much more compelling as well as dreamlike/revelatory. The interaction b/n Cecilia and Robbie is charming-as a film couple they bring a great deal to the text. The director continues to underscore the components, truth and treachery of memory. He, as Briony, will continue to recall the night he is arrested. While Briony hears Robbie's mother screaming "Liar! Liar!" while she bangs on the police car taking her son away (Brenda Blynyth -sp?-as amazing as usual), Robbie is only able to remember this evening when he is able to articulate the classism and betrayal of Cecilia's family.

Memory is interrogated on a political level at the Battle of Dunkirk. Robbie and two fellow soldiers spend years estranged from their troop (McEwan's/Wright's) reminder that the British army initially failed in France against Germany. They are working class soldiers abandoned by the British army to hide and defend themselves until they are saved by the next wave of troops at Dunkirk. As Robbie's guardian friend points out, as young, working class men they serve the British Empire, but at what cost and whose cost? It is during this period that Robbie is fully able to understand who he is in the socio-economic structure of English society. There are some haunting scenes, such as the field of dead school girls (they suggest a fleet of Brionys, Robbie's dream of his mother and the multiple, teeming, surrealist tableaux of Dunkirk. One writer points out that English revision of this particular episode has edited out the narratives of those abandoned soldiers because it reflected poorly on the glorious Empire. In his hallucinations, Robbie wanders through poppy fields, is tended to by his mother, is reunited with Cecilia, hears the rallying songs of English troupes, but whose narrative will be collectively "known" in history books?

As plaintive and graceful is Vanessa Redgrave's continuance of Romoli Garai (sp?)'s portrayal of young and elder Briony. The second half of the film is heartbreaking as we see Briony try to regain her lost sister and friend/admitted crush, Robbie. The undescribably complex footage of WWII soldiers is contrasted with the troop of white shoed, black and red caped nursing students in London. There are some good writerly questions here,such as Briony's imagined conversation with the reunited Cecilia and Robbie. These are all directed at us the audience as well-how many of us prefer the lie of happy endings to the isolation and tragedy of truth? What is the role of art in explicating personal and political truths? What is memoir or text but narrative as muddied by memory by desires, self deceptions, and glimpses of clarity? Who were the people we loved and took for granted, and how do we remember, mourn and atone for our parts in their and our losses?

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