AFFLICTION (Paul Schrader, US, 1998). THEME: CHRONIC PTSD; EFFECTS OF CHILDHOOD TRAUMA ON SUBSEQUENT PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT. Like another recently filmed Russell Banks' story, The Sweet Hereafter, this film deals with the lasting effects of trauma on the human spirit, but the resemblance between these films ends there. This is a sad tale of how the sins of an abusive father are visited upon his son, who tries to love but becomes lost to rage. James Coburn and Nick Nolte are excellent as the father and son. When Wade (Nolte) says that he "feels like a whipped dog...one of these days I'm gonna bite back" he evokes a coda for the central passion of many adults who were severely mistreated as children. Equally though more subtlely portrayed is the dilemma of Rolf (Willem Dafoe), Wade's younger brother. When Rolf tells Wade he's not afflicted, Wade's ready retort is, "that's what you think." Later Rolf tells of his lasting affliction. "I was a careful child and I continue to be a careful adult," he says. Rolf avoided abuse by stealth, by not permitting himself to respond with any provocation of his alcoholic father. But the price of his indelible, pervasive caution is that in mid-adulthood he still is single, aloof, living an orderly life as a bachelor college professor. He never returned to his hometown, not until his mother's death. Apart from this family psychodrama, the film also features a murder, or was it an accident? Grade: B+ (2003)
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