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OK, AuPh, you asked for it, so my wife speaks of LOTR

Posted by Victor Khomenko (M) on January 27, 2004 at 12:41:45

I guess you didn't want to hear about her reaction from my lips, so I asked my wife to write me about her impressions - after all it was she who suffered more from it - and so she did.

So, there goes... another pin into Lord.

Here is what I think about Lord of the Rings:

The reasons making me have kept my eyes open while you were peacefully snoring Saturday, were pretty simple - I wanted to see what kept Gregory riveted to our downstairs screen for 6 hours. While he was watching it, and I took an occasional peak and heard loud noises coming up from under the kitchen floor, I thought that perhaps it was like classical music to a person who only heard sounds of tam-tam his whole life - just cacophony for the unenlightened, and if I sat down and sank into the world full of fantasy and poetry - I would love it.

You know how much I love symbolism and its traces in poetry and paintings...I was dreaming of a recreation of Iceland's sagas, Kalevala, Nibelungs... Ibsenasque lofty ideas... you get the picture.

I caught "Lord of the Rings" from the middle and decided to stay put to get the taste of it. "It is OK even if I do not get the hang of the plot, I can always watch the whole series later... I will just plunge in my favorite world of fantasies at least for a while!"

I was watching it... and watching and watching... and the more I watched it, the more disappointed I became. To begin with, maybe I should have not had any expectations of "recreating" something as elusive as the spirit of symbolism... It is also true, that perhaps Tolkien had nothing to do with the whole idea of symbolism. I regretted that I did not read him and was unable to judge the movie from a standpoint of at least accurately conveying the spirit of the original. Alas!

However, viewing it as an independent creation I could not help, but feel betrayed in my expectations. To start with, it smelt and breath of "computerized" images. The pallet was extremely primitive and garish. There were no "tints" or "half tones" - just all the colors one's simple mind, unburdened by such trivial things as harmony, discreteness of means - simple taste, can imagine. I think the task for the artist was not to leave any color unused and he performed that brilliantly!

The graphic, although showing some width of imagination, also struck me as primitive and devoid of one thing that makes one look for hours at seascapes of Reuisdal or works of Turner, or De Chirico or Hopper - namely ART. It was craft - pure and simple.

I can guess that at one point the creators wanted me to see heavenly landscape. For that noble task they brought forth everything they could dream about to make me see the paradise - mountains, creeks, pavilion in a weird mixture of styles and angelic faces of the main characters - the boy, the wise man, etc. (pardon me for not knowing the names of the characters - but I only watched it for half an hour)
I cannot add anything to this. I am sure you understand what I wanted to say.

The sound "artist" cooperated nicely with the visual effects one. And what soundtrack it was! The director at appointed places wanted me to feel horror, apprehension, delight, relief, etc. For that he used incessant "sound effects", which will probably win yet another Oscar, but will still stay what they were - not music, but "EFFECTS." Did they make me feel horrified, apprehensive, delighted, relieved - not in the least...

I could write much more about it, but feel that it would be grossly unfair to do so without watching the whole movie (or at least one of them, for I am not sure I will be able to sit through the whole creation.) I know, I know you will tell me (and I agree) that in most cases it is enough to watch just a small part in order to be able to judge the whole thing. Nonetheless, I did not say anything about actors' contribution and therefore, feel guilty.

I cannot wait to rent the first part and sit patiently through it. Then, maybe, my harsh opinion of it would be more justified or (I have a futile hope) contradicted.

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