In later scenes she beats her head repeatedly against a wall, she pounds her fists on her face, she draws blood cutting into her own flesh. As her misery progresses, though, sympathy for her becomes strained. The film becomes too much of a one-note rant, ultimately shutting down the viewer's empathy rather than engaging it. The great tragedies provide catharsis, a release from the tension created by the dread and terror of the events transpiring. But that catharsis to some degree depends on the contrast of the doomed fate of the hero to the hero's noble standing.
Tragic heroes are bigger than life.
Her fate is pitiable, but in Such Is Life it never transcends pity to achieve the genuinely tragic. In the great Medea plays, poetry adds beauty in and of itself, as well as intervening between the audience and the tragic events, allowing for a necessary emotional distance. In the operas, the beauty of the music heightens the emotions and adds a sensual counterpoint to the grim workings of the story. Ripstein, perhaps, intended the asides with the chorus and the ever-present television to allow some backing off from Julia's misery, but the very digital technique that gives him such freedom here also brings the audience in too close to the drama to allow the necessary distancing. It is exciting to see an established auteur like Ripstein exploring new technology, new ways to create his art.