iranu-74195

Saw the film again recently - and the amateur camera and sound work, was not "revolutionary" it was simply and obviously on a very low budget. The book deserves the actual praise. There's reviews of Director Roeg being " alternative" in his work - but that's sometimes a nice word for "bad". He's forgiven, a bit. Because their was obviously almost no budget. Acting wise, Christie was the only professional here. If you ever wonder why good Directors don't use "zoom" anymore, it's because it's childish and does nothing for any scene. It is obvious the Book is powerful, but Roeg's film was so badly edited and shot ...the drama was mostly on the cutting room floor. Roeg went on to make a clutch of badly shot films - so, maybe, as a Director, he should have been banned from handling any framing/editing or camera set ups. In retrospect - this film had a good base: Superb book + Winter time in Venice - but the local amateur cast were poor. Sutherland was poor, Roeg was very poor.

Cannot fault the Actors particularly - although everyone was an adjunct to the 2 main characters, which is a fundamental mistake , as the narrative has no other structural 'points'. Also, the dramatic ending was cut into a very rushed conclusion - that was truly underwhelming...after so much moody time spent setting up the whole ending. Acting and Cast and Sets and Music (heavily influenced by Echoes, from Pink Floyd - in cadence and coda) were very good. But the key storyline had no guts and detail and development. Orwell's 1984 was an obvious touchstone for this film - and the film(s) of that book were also poorly executed - because it's very difficult.

Jumping about in future and past is never going to be an easy ride - but, very unusually for a Nolan film, this was particularly badly done.

Best thing? Lighting/ Lighting Camera person 10/10 The rest scored badly: casting, script and the edit. Not really sure the sound was that great... but not sure what caused that. It would have been obvious to any Director, in the final cut, that there were fundamental errors in development. Have a feeling they already knew the budget had gone beyond - so they cut it as best they could

I will neither bother to re-view this or reference it. It needs to be buried...in a time capsule, maybe.