The War Zone (1999)

Directed by: Tim Roth | 98 minutes | drama | Actors: Ray Winstone, Tilda Swinton, Lara Belmont, Freddie Cunliffe, Annabelle Apsion, Kate Ashfield, Colin Farrell, Aisling O’Sullivan, Megan Thorp, Kim Wall

In the directorial debut of actor Tim Roth ‘The War Zone’, one of the last taboos in (western) society is highlighted. Namely incest. This already painful subject is also brought to the attention by the director. The impact of this film hits just as hard as the blow of a sledgehammer.

The print starts very strongly with the introduction of a family that it is all about. The mutual relationships are explained. It quickly becomes clear to you as a viewer that the bond between father and daughter is not normal. The father abuses his child. The mother turns away from this drama and the son is well into puberty trying to find his place in the world. No happy situations that you are presented with. But it is getting worse, from the very beginning of the print it becomes clear that the downward spiral of destruction has only just begun. A happy ending is unimaginable from the start of the film.

‘The War Zone’ is one of the most depressing and difficult films ever made. Incest is therefore a very heavily charged subject, but Roth does not spare the viewer and shows some scenes quite confronting and explicit. But the director doesn’t use shocking pictures to offend. These hard scenes are entirely in service of the story. The intense acting of the cast makes these events all the more difficult to process.

The strong play quickly makes it clear that these are real people and not stereotypical caricatures. There are no heroes and villains in the story. Every character has its good and bad sides, they don’t think in black and white. In the case of the father, that becomes even more difficult, because you want to hate this man wholeheartedly for what he is doing to his daughter. But even he has his good sides. as much as we like to deny this, every person is made up of good and bad sides. Pure good or bad does not exist in a person.

The title, ‘The War Zone’, refers to the bunker where the son goes when he wants to cut himself off from the outside world. When, in the end, this bunker that he saw as a safe haven in which to isolate himself turns out not to be as safe as he thought, a horrific climax follows.
Roth’s directorial debut has produced an extremely shocking yet honest film. Certainly not a film for a large audience, sensitive viewers should absolutely pass this print by. It hurts to see all the terrible events coming your way. And that is precisely the point of the film, to think about all the terrible things that remain behind closed doors. It’s debatable whether Roth’s unsubtle way of portraying this is correct, but what’s certain is that ‘The War Zone’ is a film you’ll never forget.