The Sweet Hereafter

The Sweet Hereafter is a novel (1991) written by U.S. author Russell Banks; and an award-winning film (1997) by Canadian director Atom Egoyan, who also wrote the screenplay.

Themes in the book and movie

There is a somewhat different emotional focus between the book and the movie. The book deals more centrally with the futile attempt to find meaning in a tragic event and in the emptiness of the aftermath, with Dolores serving as the sacrificial scapegoat the town requires in order to heal. This theme is especially evident in the character of the lawyer Mitchell Stephens, who is driven by a fervent need to find someone to blame, to keep the inevitable realization from sinking in that it is all senseless—pain and tragedy sometimes simply happen without reason.

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In the movie, Nichole is seen reading The Pied Piper of Hamelin by Robert Browning to children who later die in the accident. In that story, the Pied Piper leads all the children away, never to return, after their parents refuse to honor their debt to him. Though Egoyan's screenplay is not necessarily saying that the parents are responsible for the deaths of their children in the bus accident, when juxtaposed with the incidents of incest and adultery among the townspeople, the Pied Piper theme perhaps introduces a moral judgment against them not evident in the book—that the accident is an implied punishment for their sins.

Related Topics:
The Pied Piper of Hamelin - Robert Browning - Incest - Adultery

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In the Pied Piper, there is a crippled child who is unable to follow the Piper's song, and so he is left behind in a now-childless town, forever wishing he could have gone with the other children. The paralyzed survivor, Nichole, is clearly identified with this child in the movie, shifting away from her motivation in the book in which she is primarily acting out of anger against her incestuous father. Instead in the movie she has mixed feeling about the accident - on the one hand it has crippled her and killed her friends, on the other hand it has given her power over her father.

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The Pied Piper theme is further enhanced through a haunting score by Mychael Danna, which is heavily influenced by Medieval and Renaissance music with frequent appearances of a flute.

Related Topics:
Mychael Danna - Medieval - Renaissance - Flute

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