We Are What We Are unravels very slowly. So slowly that sometimes its just the revelation you're hanging in there for (if you haven't arrived at the movie not knowing what its about of course). Maybe that was my problem, I knew the subject matter and kind of wanted it to get to the good stuff quicker than it did. But once that moment comes its all the more shocking for the wait.
So many films pile on the shock and gore too quickly and it desensitizes the viewer to the point where what was supposed to be horrifying just doesn't work. In We Are What We Are, when it gets to the moment where the girls have to perform their first kill you feel you're right there in the room with them and experience what it must be like to have to undertake what is expected.
The film is grim, not just the obvious scenes but it exists like some crossover between modern times (the inclusion of mobile phones) and some time set two hundred years ago. The music the father plays while they dine is on an old record player with a crackling LP playing haunting songs which accompany the hideous spread in front of them. The close up shots of their bowl of "soup" looks incredibly gross knowing whats in it.
There's a curious beautiful moment too where the use of music accompanies the girls marking out a body for butchering. Its almost moving in a way that really shouldn't be at all, given what they are doing. When it finally gets to the end scene its quite unexpected and some may say a little out of place with the whole scenario, although considering how the family have been surviving up until now maybe its not too surprising.
So many films pile on the shock and gore too quickly and it desensitizes the viewer to the point where what was supposed to be horrifying just doesn't work. In We Are What We Are, when it gets to the moment where the girls have to perform their first kill you feel you're right there in the room with them and experience what it must be like to have to undertake what is expected.
The film is grim, not just the obvious scenes but it exists like some crossover between modern times (the inclusion of mobile phones) and some time set two hundred years ago. The music the father plays while they dine is on an old record player with a crackling LP playing haunting songs which accompany the hideous spread in front of them. The close up shots of their bowl of "soup" looks incredibly gross knowing whats in it.
There's a curious beautiful moment too where the use of music accompanies the girls marking out a body for butchering. Its almost moving in a way that really shouldn't be at all, given what they are doing. When it finally gets to the end scene its quite unexpected and some may say a little out of place with the whole scenario, although considering how the family have been surviving up until now maybe its not too surprising.