Palindromes

Palindromes

Director Todd Solondz / 2004 / USA

"The films of Todd Solondz rub the grotesque in our faces, the better to see ourselves, my dears... The startling and powerful Palindromes casts eight actors to play Aviva, a pregnant thirteen-year-old girl who runs away from home after her mother (a superb Ellen Barkin) talks her into an abortion. A truck driver brings her to Mama Sunshine, an evangelical Christian who houses disabled kids and preaches death to the wicked, notably abortionists. Solondz likes to put the screws to moral hypocrisy. As always, he goes too far. As always, you don't want to look away." - Rolling Stone

"Brave and challenging. The film has no heroes without flaws and no villains without virtues. I look at a movie like this, and I consider what courage it took to make it. Solondz shows us transgressive or evil characters, invites us to identify with their pathos, then shows us that despite our sympathy they're rotten anyway. You walk out of one of his films feeling like you've just failed a class in ethics, and wondering if in this baffling world anyone ever passes." - Chicago Sun-Times


D/S Todd Solondz P Derrick Tseng, Mike Ryan WS Celluloid Dreams TD 35mm/col/2004/100mins

Todd Solondz was born in New Jersey, USA, in 1959. His films include Welcome to the Dollhouse (1995), Happiness (1998), Storytelling (2001).

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