On with the films!
Jun. 15th, 2007 09:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tiggymalvern
Two more to review - one Norwegian deadpan black comedy and one Israeli gay-themed film about life and tolerance in Tel Aviv and on the Palestinian side of the shifting border. Wolfwood is appropriate here in two very different ways!
Where on earth is it possible to start when talking about The Bothersome Man? I guess the best place to start is by saying this is one of the most surreal films I've ever seen. Andreas finds himself in a city where everyone goes about their everyday lives involved in nothing but tedious minutiae and polite superficialities. It's obvious Andreas doesn't belong, but how to get out or get the others to change?
The majority of this film falls into the category of comedy played straight - it's the complete lack of reaction in the Stepford people to things that should be profoundly shocking that make it funny. It's another film with long periods dialogue-free, and that means the success rests on the casting of Andreas, and the actor does a great job. When there is dialogue, it's wickedly sharp when it needs to be, and always perfectly chosen to make a point, from the painfully polite and embarrassing small talk at dinner with the new work colleagues to the mass discussions on furniture styles. But there are some scenes in the film, and at unexpected times, when the gore comes to the fore - the guy next to me covered his face on a few occasions. It's not plotless gore, it's making very specific points, but the squeamish be warned. And at one point it just becomes so utterly sick and twisted that the SO and I were cringing and about dying laughing at the same time XD
Afterwards, you're left wondering what the hell the film-makers were trying to say, beyond the obvious about a self-involved and materialistic society. We picked it apart in the car on the way home, and there are clues here and there, often just in one or two lines of dialogue, that hand you threads to tug on to try and unravel the rest. But the ending really doesn't suggest any kind of alternative - is there a different way to live?
Scoring this film was tricky. We wanted a tangenital scale to the norm, still rated 0-5 but at ninety degrees XD There's really no way to compare this film to the more standard fare. We both voted it a four after some thought, for being internally consistent and making us think while being entertained, even if we still couldn't figure out for sure what the hell we'd just seen.
The Bubble is a film about a group of early twenties flatmates and friends in Tel Aviv, some gay, some straight, who live life in their own carefully chosen world. They actively avoid political discussion and the realities around them, other than by promoting their self-labelled 'rave for peace' beach parties. But in the environment of the Israeli-Palestinian conflicts, no bubble can remain intact forever, and the politics are coming after them whether they want it or not.
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teaforme and I both had the same reaction to this one - it was a really good film, that we enjoyed a lot, right up until the last five minutes. Woes. The writer/director created an interesting cast of characters with nicely written and developed relationships and interactions, including scenes that were funny, and sweet, and others that were deeply moving. So many little touches made the film stand out as thoughtful and not overly simplistic - and then it all deteriorates into a soap opera as characters make WTF decisions that go against everything the film's so carefully established of their personalities and priorities.
It felt like the director was running out of screen time with no way to wrap it up, and so plumped for high drama. After all, isn't that what film audiences expect? Personally, I'd thought of at least one better way to end it by the time I left the cinema, and another on the drive home. Instead, in making the choice he did, the writer torpedoed not only the believability of his own script and characters, but also the message the whole of the film up till that point had been sending out. Weird.
This was a tough one to score. I very nearly gave it a three, but in the end wavered into a four because most of it was good even if the ending sucked. Overall, this director's earlier film Walk on Water, though not so well developed in the earlier parts and with some unsettled pacing, is a better balanced film and the one I'd rec more.
Where on earth is it possible to start when talking about The Bothersome Man? I guess the best place to start is by saying this is one of the most surreal films I've ever seen. Andreas finds himself in a city where everyone goes about their everyday lives involved in nothing but tedious minutiae and polite superficialities. It's obvious Andreas doesn't belong, but how to get out or get the others to change?
The majority of this film falls into the category of comedy played straight - it's the complete lack of reaction in the Stepford people to things that should be profoundly shocking that make it funny. It's another film with long periods dialogue-free, and that means the success rests on the casting of Andreas, and the actor does a great job. When there is dialogue, it's wickedly sharp when it needs to be, and always perfectly chosen to make a point, from the painfully polite and embarrassing small talk at dinner with the new work colleagues to the mass discussions on furniture styles. But there are some scenes in the film, and at unexpected times, when the gore comes to the fore - the guy next to me covered his face on a few occasions. It's not plotless gore, it's making very specific points, but the squeamish be warned. And at one point it just becomes so utterly sick and twisted that the SO and I were cringing and about dying laughing at the same time XD
Afterwards, you're left wondering what the hell the film-makers were trying to say, beyond the obvious about a self-involved and materialistic society. We picked it apart in the car on the way home, and there are clues here and there, often just in one or two lines of dialogue, that hand you threads to tug on to try and unravel the rest. But the ending really doesn't suggest any kind of alternative - is there a different way to live?
Scoring this film was tricky. We wanted a tangenital scale to the norm, still rated 0-5 but at ninety degrees XD There's really no way to compare this film to the more standard fare. We both voted it a four after some thought, for being internally consistent and making us think while being entertained, even if we still couldn't figure out for sure what the hell we'd just seen.
The Bubble is a film about a group of early twenties flatmates and friends in Tel Aviv, some gay, some straight, who live life in their own carefully chosen world. They actively avoid political discussion and the realities around them, other than by promoting their self-labelled 'rave for peace' beach parties. But in the environment of the Israeli-Palestinian conflicts, no bubble can remain intact forever, and the politics are coming after them whether they want it or not.
teaforme and I both had the same reaction to this one - it was a really good film, that we enjoyed a lot, right up until the last five minutes. Woes. The writer/director created an interesting cast of characters with nicely written and developed relationships and interactions, including scenes that were funny, and sweet, and others that were deeply moving. So many little touches made the film stand out as thoughtful and not overly simplistic - and then it all deteriorates into a soap opera as characters make WTF decisions that go against everything the film's so carefully established of their personalities and priorities. It felt like the director was running out of screen time with no way to wrap it up, and so plumped for high drama. After all, isn't that what film audiences expect? Personally, I'd thought of at least one better way to end it by the time I left the cinema, and another on the drive home. Instead, in making the choice he did, the writer torpedoed not only the believability of his own script and characters, but also the message the whole of the film up till that point had been sending out. Weird.
This was a tough one to score. I very nearly gave it a three, but in the end wavered into a four because most of it was good even if the ending sucked. Overall, this director's earlier film Walk on Water, though not so well developed in the earlier parts and with some unsettled pacing, is a better balanced film and the one I'd rec more.
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no subject
Date: 2007-06-16 05:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-16 07:55 am (UTC)