KILLING SEASON
US, 2013, 91 minutes, Colour.
Robert De Niro, John Travolta, Milo Ventimiglia, Elizabeth Olsin.
Directed by Mark Steven Johnson.
Killing Season was not received favourably. Many viewers from the Balkans were not impressed, especially with the detail and how accurately expressed about the Serbian Army, the invasion of Bosnia, the presence of the Americans.
This is often an ugly film, a film about a vengeance, two men struggling with each other, alternating with being in control, trying to harm each other, often savagely.
The film was a star vehicle from Robert De Niro who is his usual self, reliable in his performance. The Serb is played by John Travolta, sporting a closely cropped head which seems to have been treated with boot polish and a Moslem-style moustache-less beard which commentators say would be unusual for somebody who is clearly Serbian Orthodox. Travolta also uses a broken English accent.
The film opens with some harsh sequences of the war in the Balkans in the 1990s, prisoners and a camp, the advance of the Americans, some atrocities of the Serbs. Then there is a scene of executions, with audiences realising that it was De Niro shooting Travolta.
18 years after the war, Travolta tracks down information about De Niro and his life in the United States, travels to his remote home, seemingly befriends him, goes hunting with him, spends a drinking evening with reminiscences. However, the next morning, they go literally hunting with arrows, Travolta wanting to force De Niro into confession of what he did, Travolta also confessing about his participation in the Scorpios, a torture group. In beautiful remote countryside, the two try to outdo each other, exercising cruelty – but with remarkable ability to recover.
Ultimately, the two do come to terms with what they have done, going back into their past, examining their lives, confessing what they have done – a confession, purging, gaining some kind of peace.
1. The impact of the film? Audiences being hostile? Critical of the presentation of the Serbs and the war in the Balkans? Audiences outside the US and the Balkans and their perceptions and memories?
2. The opening, the camp, the Americans advancing, the torture squads? The execution of the Scorpion group? The flashbacks to the sequences, specifically showing Ford and Kovac?
3. Kovac, 18 years later, getting the information in the bar? His going to the United States? The later explanation of his injuries, paralysed, regaining mobility, spending time in England driving a taxi? Yet all the time with his own sense of guilt? His desire to confront Ford?
4. Benjamin Ford, Robert De Niro character, isolated, a hunter, the impact of the war experiences, his wife leaving him, his son growing up, married, having the baby, the invitation to the baptism, the phone call, his not wanting to go? His injuries from the war, the shrapnel in the leg? His solitude, hunting, the difficulty in shooting the deer?
5. In the truck, breaking down, encountering Kovac, his bad temper, apologising to Kovac, Kovac fixing the truck? The storm, offering Kovac the lift, the meal, their talking amiably, the drinking after meal, memories of the past, stories?
6. The next morning, going hunting, the radio contact? The deer, Ford failing, Kovac firing the arrow? The continued pursuits, woundings, Ford and the arrow in his leg, the arrow extracted, the rope and his being hung up? Turning the tables, each of them gaining control, the visual aspects of the injuries, the torture?
7. Kovac wanting Ford to spill his guts, confession? Kovac wanting to tell his own story?
8. Ford and the joke about the confession, the priest and the local, the sexual sins, not telling the exploited woman the war was over? Giving a tone, the language and rituals and priestly as of confession, absolution?
9. The cat and mouse tactics, using stones, in the river, getting out before the cascades? Get the continued communication?
10. The arrival of the son and his wife, the baby, Kovac seeing the invitation to the baptism? Knowing the story? Aiming his arrow at them? Not shooting?
11. The ultimate sitting down together, talking, the effect of the atrocities, the need for purging, how successful?
12. Kovac returning to Serbia, some kind of ordinariness and peace?
13. Ford visiting his family?
