Portis_Charles

It's a film of infinite beauty, fascinating, funny too. Jarmusch takes all his time to show and make us feel the places (Detroit, Tangiers, magnificent choices), which fits perfectly the vampires' endless lives. Everything here, characters, objects and places, has a significant age and is inscribed in Time. The recurring image of rotations render the reality of eternity. Records are played and books are read again and again through long nights, for the greatest pleasure of their enjoyers. Knowledge becomes intoxicating pleasure (Quantum entanglement...). It's fantastic and inspiring to see Eve's marvel at simply watching the world, swallowing it with great delight with her eyes. It's an exceptional tribute to arts, and the human kind by association. Maybe the slight limitation for me is precisely here. Tom Hiddleston's character (Adam) affects a contempt and a moral judgment of human turpitudes which leaves a depressing feeling. Not enough to spoil this magnificent work of course.

Watching the refreshing and elevating veracity of Daniel Liu as a police inspector here, it strikes me that the ability of Gus Van Sant for bringing non-professional actors in his cinema and making the best of them is a demonstration of the purity of his filmmaking. He can take these pieces of pure truth and integrate them seamlessly in the fabric of his film.

The kaleidoscopic nature of the storytelling is the whole purpose of this film and an ode to cinema. At 80-minute length, it can be taken easily in one sitting and put the viewer in the ability to piece intimately together elements that didn't make sense at first.

Its subject itself makes the film devoid of humour, unlike some of the best Gus Van Sant's material. It's never a laugh out loud humour of course, but it's there, by light touches. It's missing here, although it's compensated by another type of lightness in the ethereal nature of the filming/editing.

Fargeat does not look for much subtlety here. She goes for the heavy-handed, ultra close shots right in the face and outrageous satire of the media world and its demands for physical perfection. But it works, in a sense. It's a way of exploring the terrible pressure our mediated world puts on women's bodies to conform to tyrannical ideals of youth and thinness. The body horror is displayed without restraint and is enhanced by an enjoyable use of nudity. The acting is excellent and is not afraid of being outrageous. I like this bit of information that Universal gave up on the distribution of the film because Fargeat refused the changes they requested. Good for her and for us. Not a masterpiece by any means, but an entertaining piece of gore that draws on important themes.