Viggo Mortensen started writing scripts in the 90s and has been writing for more than 20 years.
In the process, he became the Aragorn II of Middle-earth, became the favorite of director David Cronenberg, and was shortlisted for 3 Oscars and 4 Golden Globes…
Then he was still writing.
This year he finally released the film “Falling”, written and directed and acted by himself.
From all angles, these are key works in the career of the 62-year-old Mortensen.
But why does he want to make such an unsightly movie?
For more than half the length of “Falling”, he has endured the abuse and mental abuse of “you pseudo lady”.
John took his father Willis to Southern California in order to find a warm new home for his father.
Willis has obvious symptoms of dementia, but he has lost most of his emotions many years ago.
He is irresponsible, mentally abusive to his family, he despises his homosexual son John, he is lustful, he thinks everyone wants to take advantage of him…
And these negative characters are even more disgusting because of his dementia.
John, who has established a warm family with her husband and daughter, must now face this nightmare of life again.
How would John, who had vowed not to get angry because of his father, deal with Willis, who is gradually deteriorating?
Viggo Mortensen is not gay, so this is not an autobiographical movie.
But it took him more than 20 years to finally launch “Falling”.
There must be some persistence and truthful portrayal of Mortensen.
In fact, “Falling” is indeed Mortensen’s mood story.
The play is fake, the characters are fake, but the emotions are real.
In 2015, Mortensen’s mother passed away, suffering from dementia symptoms for many years before her death.
Two years later, his father also passed away due to dementia…
Dementia also took away Mortensen’s grandparents, uncles and aunts, and even his stepfather.
Dementia is not just an intractable disease, it is also a black net that covers the Mortensen family.
No one hates Aragorn, so after “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” in 2003, Mortensen, who is so popular, can choose to play the hero of the next major commercial film.
And he finally chose to put down the sword and chose David Cronenberg, who also gave up physical mutation and strange sex.
The two collaborated on two violent films that were well-reviewed and also shortlisted for major awards.
Mortensen now has box office influence and the strength to win prizes.
In the mid-2010s, he should be free to choose either “box office” or “acting” route to a higher level in Hollywood.
However, he disappeared.
Hollywood will always be short of a tough guy, especially Mortensen, a tough guy who is always melancholy in his eyes and makes the audience feel soft. Where has he gone?
Esquire even made a report with the title directly stating everyone’s doubts:
“Why did Viggo Mortensen disappear?”
Before Mortensen was interviewed, he went to a hypermarket and bought some medical supplies that the caregiver asked him to buy. These were for his father’s use.
In 2016, Mortensen put aside his acting career and flew to New York to take care of his demented father around the clock.
Father has been in bed for a while and needs nursing and Mortensen to help him turn over, feed and deal with feces.
Mortensen is sleeping in the room next to his father. He has a baby monitor on the bedside to see his father’s condition.
As you can imagine, this is a difficult journey.
An actor who has been unsuccessful for many years, only became the world’s favorite Uranus superstar after he was 40 years old.
But he resolutely put aside his career and devoted himself to caring for his sick father.
And this kind of illness has taken away many of his closest family members. These parents and elders who loved him all changed before they left.
When Mortensen was 11 years old, his parents divorced, and his mother took her three sons to New York to live independently and pull them into adults.
Before her mother died, she could not recognize the blue-eyed baby that she had devoted her life to.
We still cannot find a way to completely cure Dementia.
This medical mystery over the years has brought pain to many families and has covered their doubts with another heartbreaking mystery.
We never know what took away the minds of our loved ones.
This confusion, anger, and sorrow have merged into a complicated and inexplicable knot.
For Mortensen, who had experienced more tearing experiences than ordinary people, he was already unable to untie this knot.
What he can do is to let this emotion be fully reflected on the screen.
Let the audience feel the parent-child feelings under the shadow of dementia, feel the communication problems that existed even before dementia, the excessive expectations of parents, the struggle of children’s eagerness, and how dementia can make these worse.
The father Willis, played by Lance Henriksen, is a hateful character who gathers all the hateful fathers.
He has a strong desire to control, and the same strong sense of irresponsibility, he is stubborn, conservative, careful, and refuses any communication.
But this role is still performed by the old actor Lance Henriksen.
This gentle pervert who hates to be ticklish in “Hard Target”.
In this movie, even Sven is thrown away and becomes a dirty beast that lives only by desire.
He verbally bullied John and the audience played by Mortensen for more than 100 minutes.
And if you first know the background of Mortensen’s creation of this movie, you may realize why “Falling” is so unbearable.
John, who has already married, even became a flight pilot and has a happy family, is still ridiculed by his dementia dad as “not a man.”
However, even if we see John, who should have been let go, endure these years of bullying with extreme pain.
But he still tried hard to communicate with such an unscrupulous father, trying hard to understand this father who denies everything.
The audience can’t get the answer of Hollywood movie style.
This father didn’t become like this because of a dark secret in the family, nor did he pretend to be unreasonable because of something to protect.
The audience expects that behind Willis’s negative character, there should be a secret that makes people cry (such as the warm secret like “Nobody’s Fool”).
But after “Falling” gradually peeled Willis’s heart for nearly two hours, the audience may not be able to get the answer they expected.
This is because “Falling” is not really trying to unlock the lock that thousands of families cannot unlock.
It just pulls the lock to the camera to let you see how complicated the lock is, and you can only do your best.
Mortensen said:
“I personally think that we should always work hard to communicate. This is worth it. Especially at this time, communication problems are more important, because our society and families have gradually ceased to communicate, and lack of communication has become another epidemic. , And it is even as deadly as lung disease, even spreading more widely and longer, and there is no vaccine to stop it. We can only stop this problem by listening hard, we listen not to respond or attack each other, but to listen Those who deny or ignore you. It takes more time and effort than simply criticizing or ignoring them. And I think “Falling” fits the current social atmosphere very well.”
If your parents object to their children coming out, object to your hobbies, and throw your PG Gundam model to a recycler, “Falling” will make you feel the same.
With the role of John, Mortensen guides the audience on the final journey of communication with his son.
Even if dementia is irreversible, even if the damage of emotional blackmail and verbal bullying has been done, John still wants to understand what the real flaw in Willis’s heart is.
This is also a way for him to heal his injuries-painful, but worth it.
“Falling” also invited Mortensen’s mentor David Cronenberg to perform-Cronenberg, who has previously played the perverted doctor, is completely barrier-free.
The final ending was filled with a strange warmth.
The movie doesn’t seem to have really changed anything, but it seems to have more emotions other than hatred.
Mortensen bravely vented the family hurt in another form.
“Falling” once again presents the new face of the actor’s inner tenderness and determination.
