Landscape of the Heart
Winter Passing, now out on DVD, is visually beautiful with skillful acting and slow-paced story telling. the lives portrayed are barren as a winter landscape, rife with drug and alcohol abuse, casual sex, self-injury, suicide attempted and suicide succeeded…in their attempts to block out lonliness and disappointment.
These lives are groping towards meaning and find it in the search fro a redefinition of family, after Reese’s rocky homecoming leads to a measure of reunion and reconciliation.
The ending is a bit too neat after the messiness we’ve been privy to. But, the film is worth watching and considering for its complex interactions among the four characters in the Michigan scenes as they search for some new way, any way, out of a hard winter’s landscape.