SpelingError
Joined May 2014
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SpelingError's rating
Reviews345
SpelingError's rating
Out of every film I saw this month, this was definitely the last one which I expected would receive such high marks from me. But what do you know, I finally embraced a trash horror film. I took the opening text of "THIS MOVE SHOULD BE PLAYED LOUD" for real and it made the film feel so visceral as a result. The music from the Roosters was godawful and annoyed the hell out of me, but that's the point. Just as Reno found the rock music completely insufferable and way too loud, you feel the same way. Instructing us to play it loud is a brilliant way to put us in his headspace, especially considering the music was one of the main reasons why he turned to crime in the first place. Granted, I did feel the music grew less frequent in the last act, which caused its effect to fizzle out to a degree, but at the film's best, it was legitimately great. They at least gave us some great sound to go deaf over during the murder scenes to make up for the lack of awful music. Part of me feels weird to call this great since it's very trashy and not well-made in any traditional sense, but I think Ferrera knew exactly what he was going for and nailed it.
Also, sorry to my brother in the other room if you heard all that noise. But hey, that's what you get for keeping me up at night all week!
Also, sorry to my brother in the other room if you heard all that noise. But hey, that's what you get for keeping me up at night all week!
To address the elephant in the room, the opening 10 minutes are beyond jarring to the point they feel lifted from a completely different film altogether. It can best be compared to a film like von Trier's "Europa". As for the rest of the film, I've seen people liken the tone and visuals to Bergman, Angelopoulos, and Tarkovsky, which I can (mostly) see, but the film I thought most about was "Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring". The prologue doesn't mesh well with the succeeding mishmash of quiet, reflective tones in any way, so whether that scene makes or breaks the film for you will be largely dependent on your ability to handle tonal shifts. As for my experience, since the opening occurred before the film fleshed out its biblical themes helped. It doesn't disrupt the themes so much as set the stage for them (if it occurred in the middle via flashback, I think I would've taken greater issue with its inclusion). Granted, I did think it was unnecessary to show Anatoli's backstory to us when they could've just communicated that info through a few lines of dialogue, but getting it out of the way right at the start allowed me to move past it and get the full benefit of the biblical allusions and undercurrents.
While Father Anatoli's portrayal shares some similarities with the life of Jesus, I think Lungin's intentions with his character cover more ground than a surface-level reading like that would suggest. I think Anatoli is instead meant to act as a fool for Christ, especially regarding his touches of absurdity sprinkled throughout (most notably, in the final act). Through this sacrifice to God, Lungin explores the nature of seeking forgiveness for your sins and how these attempts at redemption can both alienate you from your fellow worshippers yet simultaneously inspire the masses. Since Anatoli successfully obtained the gifts of prophecy and healing through his sacrifice means his redemptive efforts worked. This makes the aforementioned comparisons to Bergman rather interesting since Lungin is essentially communicating the opposite idea here. God is not silent; he listened and responded.
I went back and forth between giving this film a 4 or a 3.5 due to the incongruity of its opening, but the more I pondered over what I took from the film, the easier I found it to overlook that bug.
While Father Anatoli's portrayal shares some similarities with the life of Jesus, I think Lungin's intentions with his character cover more ground than a surface-level reading like that would suggest. I think Anatoli is instead meant to act as a fool for Christ, especially regarding his touches of absurdity sprinkled throughout (most notably, in the final act). Through this sacrifice to God, Lungin explores the nature of seeking forgiveness for your sins and how these attempts at redemption can both alienate you from your fellow worshippers yet simultaneously inspire the masses. Since Anatoli successfully obtained the gifts of prophecy and healing through his sacrifice means his redemptive efforts worked. This makes the aforementioned comparisons to Bergman rather interesting since Lungin is essentially communicating the opposite idea here. God is not silent; he listened and responded.
I went back and forth between giving this film a 4 or a 3.5 due to the incongruity of its opening, but the more I pondered over what I took from the film, the easier I found it to overlook that bug.
What begins as a standard drama soon morphs into a complex fusion of fiction and documentary filmmaking. Once the changeover occurs about at the halfway point, the illusion this is just a movie is broken and the remaining film feels hobbled by this restriction. Mina reminds us she was merely acting in the first half on a handful of occasions, the grumpy old woman on the bus is unmasked as an actress, the microphone attached to the lead occasionally cuts out and gives feedback, and numerous shots are ruined by cars and buses blocking our view of Mina. With these alterations, the identity of the film feels discarded, yet the narrative though line of Mina attempting to navigate Tehran to make it home still persists from beginning to end. So, do we experience transcendence from the limitations of the film, or is this transcendence just an illusion since a clear essence of the first half is still present? At any rate, this is perhaps the most seamless blend of fiction and documentary filmmaking I've seen since the spirit of the first half still remains fully intact after the fictional narrative ends.
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