Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by halfnote (A) on December 01, 2005 at 19:55:24

In Reply to: Re: Kill "Kill Bill, Volume 1" posted by cmc on December 1, 2005 at 12:48:54:

Don't be put off by the strength of expressions. Opinions, strongly stated, beget good discussion.

Yet, I would appreciate it if you could clarify the "point" that breezed past me. Because, to coin your phrase, it did seem like so much wind to me. It's not that the film did not have a point, which, to my mind, was "revenge." It's just that it dealt the whole concept of revenge in a very obvious and two-dimensional way. Characterization is reduced to samurai robe and a sword. Plot is reduced to killing and maming scores of faceless motivationless automatons, video-game style. Revenge is reduced to mere bloodsport.

KBV1 has all the complexity of a Steve Reeves Hurcules flick; it's just that the director had more money and more technology to play with.

I realize that intelligent people admire this movie. I admire some of QT's other work. But this one doesn't measure up.

And I do stand by my comment that the film does betray a certain prurience on QT's part -- I am thinking primarily of the hospital scene -- a certain relishing of perversion and sadism.

A lot of folks admire "Resevoir Dogs," a worse and even more prurient film, in my estimation, than KBV1. I don't.

So far, I haven't heard anyone give a statement of the film's artist or thematic merit. Was it titillating? suspenseful? Does it evoke any kind of visceral reaction? Yes. But this doesn't make it a good film.