movie review: The Night of the Hunter

Every now and then I Netflix movies because I feel a need to watch them. When this happens it's because I think I'm missing out on something important that will either catch me by surprise and turn me on to a new facet of popular culture or alternately affirm my tastes by affirming my distastes. The latter happened recently when I watched Where The Wild Things Are, which could barely keep my attention. I didn't even deem it worthy of a review entailing how much I didn't enjoy it. Still, I had a laugh to myself every now and then over the ways I realized it was not something I liked.

Last night was a different story. After another Monday dinner at the WAB with my roommate over guy talk and under perfect September weather, we rode our bikes home and quickly separated to our own devices. He called the girl he has been seeing and I settled down on the couch for an evening of solitary relaxation I'd been missing for several months. On accident I had left The Night of the Hunter at the top of my Netflix queue, instead of bumping it down until a time when I could give it the proper anticipation I usually apply to my Netflix decisions. On this occasion I was happy to be surprised by the opportunity.

Rather than trying to remember the reasons why one of my clients originally recommended that I watch this movie, I took it at face value. The film's exposition is predictably lengthy and I'm sure the film's antagonist, the questionably devout priest with the iconic "LOVE" and "HATE" tattooed on his knuckles, was scarier in the 1950's. Where this movies shines is its photography and atmosphere. Several scenes are memorable images that are surely considered highlights of classic filmmaking. My favorites are the narrowly framed bedroom murder scene, the haunting underwater corpse in a car and the moonlit riverbank where two young children escape the psychopathic reverend. Refusing to reveal the secret hiding spot of their late father's stolen riches, the kids travel down the Ohio river until being taken in by an old lady with a houseful of orphans. Eventually they are discovered and in a suspenseful climax the lady defends her house from the villain waiting patiently outside, signing church hymns. Hidden behind the porch screen clutching a shotgun, she defiantly joins him in his singing before a child interrupts their standoff and allows for an admittedly disappointing confrontation. The movie concludes with some heartwarming moments of holiday compassion from the old lady who addresses the camera and tells us "Lord, save little children. The wind blows and the rain's a-cold. Yet they abide... They abide and they endure." The entire ending is a kind of light icing on a dark, dense cake, and the strength of this movie is in it's meaty center. Many nuances of humor and suspense mix in wonderfully to a piece of starkly contrasted art. While sloped with weakness at start and finish, this core of this movie is a beautiful example of what I always believed film noir should be. Aesthetics, sure, but not without a little bit of love and hate.