The new film by Joshua Marston, writer-director of the brilliant Maria, Full of Grace, is about a bizarre custom that has survived in modern Albania. When a person is killed, a blood feud begins, and the relatives of the killer cannot leave their homes until released by the family of the victim. Families can and do spend years – even a decade – in self-imposed house arrest enforced by the wronged family upon pain of death. This is the way of the ancient Albanian oral tradition, the Kanun. The most bizarre aspect of the house arrest is that it still exists in an otherwise modern world, among people using cell phones and text messaging.
But it is a mistake to look on The Forgiveness of Blood as “the Albanian blood feud movie” because Marston focuses on the teenagers in the family. What can it be like for a teen to be isolated in his house indefinitely? Teens have no greater craving than to be with their peers. American kids can get bored while surrounded by games, Internet access and 400 TV channels. You can imagine sitting in rural Albania with four walls and Albanian TV. Teens are also so dramatic and impulsive, the mere threat of death isn’t always enough to prevent a rash act. And then there are the hormones…
This is the omnipresent tension in The Forgiveness of Blood – what happens when the kids just can’t stand it any longer? The adults all accept a cultural logic, but the kids can see that this custom doesn’t make any sense.
The movie, as befits rural Albania, has a leisurely pace, but there is a throbbing tension underneath. That ever present tension, and the look into a strange aspect of another culture, make me recommend The Forgiveness of Blood.
Here’s the teaser (which I like more) and then the trailer.