An Optical Illusion

I was salivating, waiting for the chance to watch this film. I had read people comparing it with the work of Charlie Kaufman. This guy has done some good television work and the trailer was promising. There are plenty of ideas and clues left throughout the film. There are so many places where it could have gone..., and in the end just went nowhere. Fell flat on its face. I even found it boring. It came to a point when I just couldn't wait for some quick pay off to put an end to it.

The discrete charm of the tourists. That could be an alternative title, because the film is so buñuelesque. We see a conventional film about a trip, but in a progressive manner fears and strange things begin to interfere and change the whole movie.

A surreal view on life of average people, where the globalization fulfills everything at the point that can make you see everything as alike. Same restaurants everywhere, same kind of fictions on TV, we imitate each others but without thinking if we really want to do those things, everything constructs a strange simulation that blurbs our minds, and sometimes we can't really define reality properly. Sort of.

On the drama side, I sense that there's something fishy with the butcher that sells spam meat to the wife. All along the movie the man reapers as something threatening, that drives the story into that nightmarish point. The characters really need to fight their fears to get out the tunnel. Literally. I think that before the film, that marriage need to disconnect because a crisis and a trip to New York could rearrange everything.

Anyway, a nice film. No that moving or fullfiling, but that strange atmosphere and subtle layered meanings add value and makes it worths to watch it.