I recommend this movie, but be warned, this is a film that could have been made by a Soviet filmmaker in a bad mood. It is absolutely worth watching, and I want to give all of the actors kudos for their performances. They acted the hell out of this material.
Liv Ullman in particular tries to make the most out of this character, and there isn't much in that character. I don't know if it was Ebert or the New York times who said that there is no character development because the characters are absolutely finished by the time they show up. That was so mean! But so true.
The cinematography is fantastic. Stationary camera, deep focus so that every single Pebble and leaf is up there on the screen, it's beautiful to look at and absolutely gorgeous. Cinematography often uses blur and all kinds of goofy things to create interest or to direct your attention, so it's interesting to have long shots from a stationary camera with everything in focus. Some of my favorite Russian movies use this effect. You feel like you're actually sitting on the shore watching a guy in his underwear escaping from a lunatic asylum, and the beauty of this kind of cinematography is that the subject is able to speak. The starkness of the landscape. A man in his underwear prancing through the snow. All of those tricks that cinematographers use to direct our attention are not needed.
Soundtrack is fascinating and I really enjoyed listening to this movie. So much talent and so much hard work went into this film, and it's not all lost. I'm giving it 8 out of 10 because it is a beautiful and compelling film. I'm also giving it a relatively high score because even though there are deep and profound and unfixable story problems, I was intrigued and I kept looking for the deeper meaning or the solution to it. It got me into a mystery novel frame of mind.
I am a Scandinavian American, so the cultural atmosphere of this film was endearing to me. The pissy bourgeois doctor who thinks he's too good to farm? Yes. I literally think I'm related to this man.
So, to sum it up, I highly recommend this for it's beautiful cinematography and soundtrack and for the immense hard work that went into this film. The actors all work very hard and I believe that they succeeded in bringing life to this material.
Finally, with regard to the story, it blows my mind that somebody typed up a treatment like this and sold it. It feels more like they came up with a gimmick (how could somebody commit a crime while having an ironclad alibi elsewhere?) but it fell apart when it was handed to a screenwriter. I also wonder if the studio leaned on them and tried to turn this into something that the original script wasn't.
And that final moment, hilariously, it redeemed so much of the story for me. I think check off would agree that if there is a parrot in a movie, that parrot will have to go off before the end. And that parrot goes off, lol. I'm almost thinking of raising my score for this film on the basis of that last scene. The actors are able to underact this scene to great effect.
Liv Ullman in particular tries to make the most out of this character, and there isn't much in that character. I don't know if it was Ebert or the New York times who said that there is no character development because the characters are absolutely finished by the time they show up. That was so mean! But so true.
The cinematography is fantastic. Stationary camera, deep focus so that every single Pebble and leaf is up there on the screen, it's beautiful to look at and absolutely gorgeous. Cinematography often uses blur and all kinds of goofy things to create interest or to direct your attention, so it's interesting to have long shots from a stationary camera with everything in focus. Some of my favorite Russian movies use this effect. You feel like you're actually sitting on the shore watching a guy in his underwear escaping from a lunatic asylum, and the beauty of this kind of cinematography is that the subject is able to speak. The starkness of the landscape. A man in his underwear prancing through the snow. All of those tricks that cinematographers use to direct our attention are not needed.
Soundtrack is fascinating and I really enjoyed listening to this movie. So much talent and so much hard work went into this film, and it's not all lost. I'm giving it 8 out of 10 because it is a beautiful and compelling film. I'm also giving it a relatively high score because even though there are deep and profound and unfixable story problems, I was intrigued and I kept looking for the deeper meaning or the solution to it. It got me into a mystery novel frame of mind.
I am a Scandinavian American, so the cultural atmosphere of this film was endearing to me. The pissy bourgeois doctor who thinks he's too good to farm? Yes. I literally think I'm related to this man.
So, to sum it up, I highly recommend this for it's beautiful cinematography and soundtrack and for the immense hard work that went into this film. The actors all work very hard and I believe that they succeeded in bringing life to this material.
Finally, with regard to the story, it blows my mind that somebody typed up a treatment like this and sold it. It feels more like they came up with a gimmick (how could somebody commit a crime while having an ironclad alibi elsewhere?) but it fell apart when it was handed to a screenwriter. I also wonder if the studio leaned on them and tried to turn this into something that the original script wasn't.
And that final moment, hilariously, it redeemed so much of the story for me. I think check off would agree that if there is a parrot in a movie, that parrot will have to go off before the end. And that parrot goes off, lol. I'm almost thinking of raising my score for this film on the basis of that last scene. The actors are able to underact this scene to great effect.
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