The freedom could look like this: lush green as far as eye can reach; Mighty, towering trees with majestic crowns forming a protective roof; On floor homely rustling foliage. Spider webs hang between bushes, shimmering silky in sunlight. As delicate, fragile and yet adaptable as home that 15-year-old Tom (Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie) and her far Will (Ben Foster) have created in this forest.
A tent, a waterproof tarp, a small Salatbeet, two don't need it. They drink rainwater, make fire and fry mushrooms that y collect in forest. But n a branch pops up somewhere and immediately wants to tear his head up. The freedom in which two live has narrow limits and is constantly threatened by outside.
Leave no trace is only third feature film by American filmmaker Debra Granik, who became known with her thriller Winter's Bone international, not least because she made her n leading actress Jennifer Lawrence a star. It is also possible that New Zealander Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie, who is at centre of her new film, will still be making a speech in Hollywood. With self-assured intensity it radiates, it is simply a sensation.
Life in ForestBut this little independent film has stirred up many moviegoers and critics in USA far beyond lead actress and stirred to tears. This should also be due to fact that Granik is talking about hard, very American issues: Escape, war, trauma, adaptation pressure, loneliness. But it still manages to make it a gentle, moving, honest film. A film that does not hide poisoned climate and cleavage in this gigantic country and yet shows that open ear, open heart, friendship, in short: cohumanity, have not ceased to exist.
Though one might fear that in face of closed, suspicious mien of Will. The spectator does not know much about his past. Obviously he is a war veteran and suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. Tom's mor is dead and wants to see no place for himself and his daughter in society. He lives with her in a park near Portland.
That won't be good for long. A jogger sees Tom, shortly reafter social workers and police officers are on site with dogs. They're taking two into a recording facility. Tom is asked if her far has physically harassed her (which she denies proudly), wants to answer a computer voice around thousand questions about his emotional state (which overwhelms him in shortest time).
Finally, two are hiding in a social project, which should provide m with a good chance of restarting. They inhabit a small house, wants to work on a farm for Christmas trees, Tom learns to know a friendly neighbor boy. But pinched look doesn't want to go out of Will's face. "You can still think of your own thoughts," he says to his daughter. In doing so, he feels that she is doing this long ago, that she wants to find a way into this society. He doesn't want to endure long and he restarts with Tom to disappear. Do not leave a track as it is in movie title.
Date Of Update: 11 September 2018, 12:00
