A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE (2005)

As this movie opens with a seemingly unordinary murder scene (at least for the two men who do the murdering), I have a difficult time imagining what might be sensual about this movie.The scene switches to the idyllic small town life of Tom and Edie Stall (Viggo Mortensen and Maria Bello) and their two children.Their life in Millbrook, Indiana is so friendly and normal that it borders on annoying or even boring.

In doing so, the tension, drama, and a good vs. evil plot of the movie start to become sensual.As Tom runs home to his family in one scene, convinced the mobsters will beat him there, I felt my pulse race and thought, “How devoted this man is to his family, how brave he is.”His strong wife stands boldly by his side, her eyes steely and her posture firm.I do not support guns, but through my new eyes, I think taking up arms in defense of my man is sensual. There is also the mystery, “How is Tom Stall so good at killing people?”Is there really a violent, dark mobster side to this soft family man?

Then, my old eyes are jerked open. I see how violence seeps into this family’s life, driven by outside forces.The Stall’s picture perfect normality falls apart.Their children are put in harm’s way.The sensual fantasy of standing up to guns and bad guys just doesn’t hold up with such a “normal” backdrop.The mobster mind-games start to fuck with the audience too. The “Bonnie and Clyde”-ness of my fantasy evaporates when Tom’s son’s violence bubbles to the surface.

The core of this movie’s sensuality lies in the relationship between Tom and Edie Stall.The charm of Tom Stall is that he is not outright sexy, like Viggo Mortensen’s mysterious vagabond in “A Walk on the Moon.”He is a good, family man with a dark side his wife had never seen before.To see such a kind man go to a primal place that leads him to kill actually is, in the context of a movie, sensual.  The movie’s two sex scenes exemplify the new duality in Tom and Edie’s relationship. The first love scene, where Edie puts on a cheerleader’s uniform to seduce her husband and ends in a loving embrace in the dark, is sensual for showing two people happily married and still playful and sexy.This scene is probably also the first time I have seen a “69” in a non-porn film!

In contrast, a forceful exchange on the stairs had Edie and Tom expressing something very new and different to each other - violence.They pound and slap each other, followed by a hard, passionate fuck.The scene’s raw intensity is the opposite of the first love scene, but is perhaps even more sensual because the couple is exploring something so new and so primal with each other.It asks the audience to consider, “Can sex and violence mix?” 

David Cronenberg created a wonderful movie with a fantastic cast.The story makes us think about the impact of violence on our lives and how it affects the lives of those around us.It is interesting to consider whether or not sensuality can be found in the midst of a violent story.In this case, I would say that yes it can.  

As I watch, I begin to think about how I watch these selections and how I rate their sensuality.It dawns on me that I watch these movies looking for a sense of reality or for overt displays of sensuality.It is as if I am looking for sensuality that could exist in my own life.Feeling like I sometimes forget that fantasy should co-exist with boundless imagination, I try to look at this movie in a different way.Yes, the idea that such violent acts could really happen in small-town America (or rather, my own reality) is over the top.Then I consider that if “A History of Violence” were in black and white, it would bear resemblance to some of the classic film noir movies that I love for their sense of thrill and danger.I try to filter this movie through the eyes of fantasy.