★★★★☆ The first in Artificial Eye's long-awaited batch of Hal Hartley reissues, Amateur (1994) represents a mid-career high point for the indie legend. As ever, it's the work of a singular auteur, treading the fine line between self-reflexive exuberance and rarefied stylisation. By ingratiating broad genre elements into the self-contained suburban eccentricity of his earlier Long Island-set efforts, Hartley finds an abundance of comic riches in the central tension between stolid realism and poker-faced ludicrousness. Amateur is the also director's most beautifully designed picture; it's a film of deft precision and glassy elegance.
Amateur stars Isabelle Huppert as a former nun struggling to make a living writing pornographic fiction while waiting for her mission from God. In a coffee shop one morning, she meets Thomas (Martin Donovan), a quiet amnesiac trying to piece together his past. The pair are unaware that Thomas' condition results from being pushed through a window by...
Amateur stars Isabelle Huppert as a former nun struggling to make a living writing pornographic fiction while waiting for her mission from God. In a coffee shop one morning, she meets Thomas (Martin Donovan), a quiet amnesiac trying to piece together his past. The pair are unaware that Thomas' condition results from being pushed through a window by...
- 5/14/2013
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
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