RickyFlambo

Joseph Cotten had a wildly varied career. He was in some of the greatest films ever made - Citizen Kane, Shadow of a Doubt, The Third Man, Portrait of Jennie - but was also in some of the worst films. This one, The Halliday Brand, falls closer to the latter category. A stubborn, bigoted, staunchly conservative, punitive, Machiavellian father battles with his son. Not only the plot is stodgy and ugly, but the filming is dreadful, too. Difficult to watch.

Very stylish, but in the end just more of Hollywood's very long and tired history of glorifying violence, encouraging violence, inspiring violence, embracing patriarchy, masculine toxicity, and simplistic, vengeful solutions to very one-dimensional fictional problems. It would be nice to have more serious, sincere, adult content that shows the complexity of the human condition, and shows more peaceful means of dealing with conflicts. It would be nice to have a film that embraces more complex themes than, well, war. The cinematography is spectacularly creative, but goes nowhere productive because the story is the same old Star Wars and pretty much everything before and after. Many times I stopped watching out of frustration with the story, but especially at the end I just had to sigh - another man-to-man fight to the death with lasers, oops, this time knives. Sigh.

This is a very nice surrealist-style film. It's not weird, it just presents ideas in a surrealistic, symbolic manner. The story is nice, and the visuals are outstanding. It made me think, which is what I like. Some of the action requires the audience to interpret what is going on and what it means. It is not like a Bunuel film, it is more symbolic, not a juxtaposition of social norms. This film is very much in the style of a lot of South American films - symbolism and dreamy sequences to tell a story with depth and meaning. I wish I knew where to stream it so I can watch it again. If you can find it, you might enjoy it. I thought it was one of the best films at the Film Fest where I saw it.