Keane - another gripping and harrowing tale of loss, desperate depression and redemption seeking. Perhaps two such films over two consecutive nights was a bit much, but this was a powerful piece of filmmaking, a stunning character study and some sublime acting.
The third film of Lodge Kerrigan, here he stays close, very close, (like in your face close) to William Keane the epynomous subject (you couldnt call him a hero) of this film. Keane is brilliantly played by British actor Damien Lewis (Band of Brothers)
Keane - a man in his early 30s struggles with the supposed loss of his daughter from Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York City, while fighting serious battles with schizophrenia. we can never be sure if the loss is real or imaginary; or whether his overt interest in helping young girls is innocent and of a fatherly nature, or is of a darker, scarier motive.
The film shot around the grunge of the Terminal and the strange industrial landscape around the Linclon Tunnel entrances is about a search for family, belonging, and the overwhelming need for human connection. it is a disturbing and thought provoking story about real characters dealing with every day life.
Living in a cheap hotel while looking for his daughter, Keane drifts into taverns, snorts cocaine, screws strangers in clubs and repeatedly returns to the bus station trying to find her supposed kidnapper. Then one day he meets a young single mother with her young daughter (Kira) in tow. Keane reaches out to them and begins to normalize himself as a person – or does he? Not surprisingly, he becomes very attached to the girl and, as the mother tries to sort through the wreckage of her own life and her relationship with a man who lives in another city, Keane is allowed into their world as friend and confidant.
Keane's quest for his daughter and Kira's longing for a nuclear family is what connects them and the audience to a grief striken, poignant and heartbreaking story.
Kerrigan invests Keane with an edgy sense of anticipation. We constantly question our response to the film and its characters: What is going on? Whom do we trust? The camera creates, especially in the film’s first half, a hypnotic sense of claustrophobia as it seldom leaves Keane's face.
For nearly the entirety of Keane the camera rests on the titular subject’s shoulders like a silent Jiminy Cricket, capturing his erratic movements in a series of 90 and 45-degree side profile close-ups that evoke the protagonist’s tortured mental state.
When the film relaxes into a triangular structure (Keane, mother, Kira), we still retain that sense of impending and potential horror as Kerrigan skilfully moves us toward a climax of great beauty and surprise.
This is a very fine film by an artist with a unique and distinctive vision. As reelfilms says:
Keane is one of those rare movies that rattles around in your head long after the credits have rolled, and if there were any justice, both Kerrigan and Lewis would receive Acadamy Awards for their work here
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The main feature was preceeded by a sweet and moving short NITS directed by Harry Wootliff
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