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 Vadim Perelman
Spotlight By: Andrea Tuccillo Director Vadim Perelman is not one to shy away from a complex tale. He proved that in 2003’s The House of Sand and Fog and he proves it once again in The Life Before Her Eyes, a drama that will no doubt spark many interpretations and theories. It follows the uninhibited 17-year-old Diana (Evan Rachel Wood) in the days before a tragic school shooting, and then jumps to her adult life 15 years later (the adult-Diana is played by Uma Thurman). Thanks to some truly mind-boggling revelations towards the end, it’s the kind of film you may have to see more than once. For Perelman, though, it has always had one clear meaning. (SPOILER ALERT!) The pivotal moment occurs in the high school bathroom where Diana and her best friend Maureen (Eva Amurri) are confronted by the gunman. “There is a concrete answer,” he says. “At least in my mind there is, but we’re open to interpretation. She [younger Diana] imagines her future life, how it would be if she survives and at the same time she remembers her past life leading up to the bathroom scene and she builds her future life from the clues in her past life.” He adds, “The reality of the film is the bathroom scene. Everything outside that bathroom scene is either remembered or imagined.” Although Perelman gives his thoughts on the film, he delights in viewers coming up with their own ideas. “I love that,” he says. “I think it’s excellent. Like I said there’s no right answer. That’s my answer, what I just said, and if you take something else from it that’s wonderful. It’s like all good works of art. When you look at Field of Crows by Van Gogh there’s not one answer to that. There’s madness, some people see the field and what kind of wheat it is, and they go, ‘Well that kind of wheat wouldn’t grow in this condition.’ Everybody takes whatever reflects themselves in it.” He also believes that people will not only enjoy the film’s mystery, but that they will also connect to its emotional aspects. “For me it’s also very important that people don’t need to have the answer, that they can just see it emotionally and be intrigued,” he says. “So it’s not an intellectual exercise, not a puzzle that they need to solve.” Evan Rachel Wood is particularly engaging in her portrayal of the younger Diana and according to Perelman, she was the first to sign on to the film. “I asked Evan to do this,” he says. “I actually asked her—she was 15 years old—at the premiere of Thirteen. After seeing that performance I just walked up and said I have a—at that point I just had the book, I didn’t even have the script—I said I have the perfect thing for you and at 19 she ended up filming it.” With so many heavy issues presented and a lot of real and raw scenes for the actors, does Perelman find ... |
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