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Column
'Things We Lost in the Fire' and New Fall Tunes
by Scott Holleran
 | | Halle Berry in Things We Lost in the Fire |
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October 21, 2007
Burbank, California—With changing colors and falling leaves—and cold Santa Ana winds kicking up in L.A.—fall offers its annual pause to reflect on the loss that precedes the gain. The new Halle Berry vehicle, Things We Lost in the Fire, taps the autumn season and stokes the spirit of renewal.
Neither an oversimplification of widowhood—such wounded women are among the strongest on earth—nor an overindulgence in the destructiveness of this era's drug culture, the admittedly imperfect movie balances both stories. Built for Berry, who stars as David Duchovny's wife and mother of two children, whose life is instantly changed with a visit from police officers, the movie really belongs to Benicio Del Toro.
Duchovny rises above his slimy cable character as the doomed, altruistic husband, Berry has some strong moments (she tends to stall, too) and Things We Lost in the Fire is boosted with badly needed humor by an actor named John Carroll Lynch (Zodiac) in a relaxed performance as a close family friend. Del Toro dominates as a drug addict who knew the deceased.
Unlike many addiction-themed pictures, the movie allows Del Toro to indulge as heavily in detoxification as he does in disease. His character, who, it is too easily presumed, succumbed to addictive behavior under enormous professional pressure, shuffles into Berry's ruptured life. He struggles, slips, twelve-steps, struggles again—only to discover that letting go is an act of free will, a lesson he must impart unto his reluctant patroness, provided he can save himself first and, in doing that, he'll need help, if he can earn the right to ask for it.
While slow-moving and clichéd, Things We Lost in the Fire contrasts the death of a husband with the death of one's counterfeit self—in the sleeplessness of a suddenly widowed woman, the restlessness of a suddenly sobered man and the small feats of a family trying to put the trauma to rest. Trading sorrow, grief and recovery, with harsh admissions, physical danger and the golden serenity prayer, widow and addict make an example of what it means to hold on and remake one's life.
Music
Fall music releases carry a similar tune, with two new albums by artists who faced death and the season's best soundtrack. British war veteran James Blunt's All the Lost Souls offers a distinctly different sound than his debut smash, Back to Bedlam, and it is very good. Packaged with complete song lyrics and composite images of photographs, the ten-track compact disc is a strong second effort—as a whole, better than his debut.
Blunt's lilting voice coasts over the tunes. The nostalgic "1973" is a rich, full-bodied melody. The bass booms without blasting, allowing one to appreciate Blunt's clear vocals, which rise and fall, recalling lost love and enunciating the word "seventy." Blunt's at his best in unusual arrangements of soft songs that look ahead after glancing but searing looks behind: the plaintive divorce adieu "Shine On," "I Really Want You" and "Same Mistake," implanted with a simple, aching wail.
The cover photograph for Marc Cohn's guitar-driven new album, Join the Parade, is a jazz funeral in New Orleans taken in 1963. The black and white shot sets the CD's darker tone, appropriate for a singer and songwriter who survived a gunshot to the head—and, remarkably, lived to produce this seamless recording. His voice is weathered and, aided by musician and co-producer Charlie Sexton using every available skill, Cohn is at his best.
That means almost five minutes of an easygoing confessional that ought to be a smash called "Listening to Levon," and six minutes of the sensual divorce elegy, "If I Were an Angel." The jubilant "Live Out the String" makes you want to skip along and shake your head; it's nearly downright happy. Two tunes will please those who discovered Cohn in the early Nineties: a lazy, piano-based healer that builds, "Let Me Be Your Witness," and "My Sanctuary," a song on which graying Cohn recaptures his early vocal sound.
Even though virtually no one on the planet saw the movie, the Feast of Love soundtrack also plays well for fall. With 18 tracks, two of them dialog from the picture, this succession of clean guitar songs rocks. Besides Jeff Buckley's ubiquitous cover "Hallelujah" and good tunes by Darren Smith and Jaime Wyatt, the Cary Brothers' "Honestly" and The Frames' "Falling Slowly" fulfill Morgan Freeman's opening monolog about the Greek gods. The original motion picture soundtrack, like the namesake, echoes "a story for anyone with an appetite for love."
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RELATED LINKS
• 'Things We Lost in the Fire' Official Web Site
• 'Feast of Love' Official Web Site
• James Blunt Official Web Site
• Marc Cohn Official Web Site
• 'Feast of Love' Soundtrack
• Scott Holleran Column Index |
