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Amazon.co.uk Review
We flash back to 1972 and Fielding's intense relationship with Sarah, marked by romantic and political differences that feel far more real than the contrived oppositional arguments in most political movies. Then skip 10 years forward to find a sleeker, hollow-faced Fielding running for Congress, tormented not only by memories of Sarah but her actual or phantasmal appearances. Another film might play this as a paranoid mystery thriller, but this goes for psychology, and Crudup delivers an intense portrait of a man cracking up by the loss of his ideals as much as his life's love--climaxing in a terrific restaurant outburst to his needy, congratulatory family. Unreleased theatrically in the UK, this outstanding film has award-quality performances from Crudup and Connelly, both doing their best screen work to date.
On the DVD: The picture is presented in 1.85.1 anamorphic widescreen, with Dolby Digital sound. You get the usual trailer, filmographies and puff piece featurette, but also three superb extras: a commentary from Gordon that passionately and intelligently addresses the thematic material and production circumstances of the film; a package of deleted scenes that goes well beyond the usual irrelevant snippets--everything here offers additional insights into the plot and character; tracks from the composers Tomandandy which play over the menus--a rare feature that's liable to become more common. --Kim Newman
DVD Description
Featurette
Deleted Scenes
Director's Commentary
Theatrical Trailer
Languages: English Dolby Digital 5.1, Spanish Dolby Surround
Subtitles: English, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish
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Customer Reviews
In 1982 a stunned Fielding Pierce (Billy Crudup) learns form the evening news that the woman he loves, Sarah Williams (Jennifer Connely) has been killed by a car bomb attack because of her involvement in opposing the corrupt government of Chile and U.S. involvement. We then go back to see how they first met, when he was serving in the Coast Guard, to avoid going to Vietnam, and she was the secretary for his brother, who is running some sort of counter culture magazine. He longs for a career in politics and she wants to bring down the system. Yet when Fielding says he wants to be president some day, she smiles because he clearly means it.
These two characters from Scott Spencer's novel are politically polarized and these differences only grow as the two fall in love. They take turns accompanying each other to important social functions at which the other one become an embarrassment, before Sarah goes off and gets killed for her beliefs. Ten years later Fielding is given the opportunity to run in a special election for a seat in the U.S. Congress, as the handpicked choice of the governor and his chief political hack (Hal Holbrook). This is the first step to what Fielding has wanted his entire life, only Sarah sees it as a betrayal. True, Sarah has been dead ten years at this point, but that does not stop Fielding from first hearing and then seeing her.
Is Fielding going insane, is he being haunted, or is this some sort of sick game? Good question, but do not ask me the answer because I watched the movie. It is hard to spoil a movie when you are not sure what really happened at the end, although I could hazard a guess. Ultimately, the politics clashes between Fielding and Sarah are more interesting than their romance. You have to wonder how their relationship would have ended if she had not died, because sooner or later one of them would have had to blink. One of the strengths of "Waking the Dead" is that both of them are right and you think that if only they could find a way to work together great things could happen.
"Waking the Dead" is one of those titles that has a double meaning, for it applies to Fielding as much as it does to Sarah. That sense of ambiguity pervades Keith Gordon's 2000 film and certainly explains why the ending is so open to interpretation. But for me it does not quite work in the end, although Fielding's scene in his Congressional office works much better than his dinner with his family. Still, this is an interesting film for those who like to see film that try to play with an audience's mind (and which should be avoid like the plague by those who did enjoy "Fight Club" or "Memento").
But it's subtititled in english only!!!
Moreover it's audio language is in English and Italian. Product page states English and Spanish!!!
This is bad because my wife is not fluent in english, unlike me.
Meaning I have to watch this movie all by myself, which is not what I intended :(
The staff at amazon UK should REALLY take some time to make sure that the product information is correct for each item. If they are short in staff, they could employ the customers to help them out.
There is also a lot of items where the full product information is lacking entirely. In such case perhaps Amazon should have a product picture of both the front and back of all the items, so we can find it ourselves.
N.B: This review is not for the movie itself, as I haven't watched it yet.
This is a wonderful film that should be watched as it confronts realistically large philosohical ponderings and basic human interaction and ideals.The emotion permeates from the screen to the audiance in flawless waves. A delectably fulfilling profound treat to watch.
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