Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by rhizomatic (A) on March 03, 2004 at 09:05:49

In Reply to: Re: "close up mode" posted by rico on March 03, 2004 at 08:16:35:

they're hyper-dramatic and claustrophobic. A la every other Hollywood film which bullies the viewer into being impressed--much like the overbearing strings that weigh the movie down.
Vanilla film-making. Run of the mill. The Unforgiven was much better, in my opinion.

I don't know why he would choose to emphasize the 'trapped' quality of their lives anyway, when that isn't what the film is about. If the film was about "I'm never going to escape this dreaery working-class existence," that might make sense. Although, really, what the film is 'about' I can't say, because it certainly isn't about the 'rippling effects of a childhood trauma' or whatever. Any film that deals with its supposedly determinant moment in less time than it takes to roll through the credits is bound to be lacking in contentfulness. Critics can try and bootstrap the film into profundity, but what happens is: something happens to some kids, then something happens to those same people when they're adults. And the way everyone behaves in the film is just implausible, especially at the very end, which is just plain surreal. And I've flipped through the book and found the writing to be alarmingly poor, so I don't think the film really failed the book. I think they both suffer from heavy-handedness.

Sorry, I don't mean to sound defensive towards you, this is just a sore spot, since I feel like the movie has some obvious and serious flaws, and I didn't read a single reviewer who addressed them, which I found really puzzling.

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