Spoilers herein.
In 1988, Peter Greenaway made a little film called `Death in the Seine.' Filmmakers have long played with notions of created reality, but this was a clever take: real people drowned in the Seine during a period that by political accidents was erased from the calendar. But we have the reports of the coroner for these anonymous people. By `showing' them, Greenaway was reinvesting their lives with reality. An amazing idea, made sweeter by having the `corpses' obviously be alive.
In 1994, film enthusiast Peter Jackson did much the same thing with `Heavenly Creatures.' He took a real story about a famous but now forgotten case and turned it into an essay on constructed film reality. In his case, this involved Orson Welles and an ersatz Camelot named Borovnia (borrow nvia).
To judge from that film, he took the matter seriously. To judge from this one, he took it personally. The `creatures' weren't the girls, instead the fictitious beings they animated.
The next year he made this film with himself as the animator. In both cases, he plays with the nature of writing. He references Welles, of course, and `Picnic at Hanging Rock,' of course. But most of all he plays under the kiwi skin with all sorts of inside jokes to exploit the national foible.
But there's enough for the rest of us, especially if you love movies. He says this is just a joke, and he may even believe it. But there's plenty of intelligent foolery here: just in the `Salome' section. This is a recreation using exclusively modern idioms. This is post- 'Battleship Potemkin' and more obviously post- `Godfather.'
It is as if we were given a Shakespeare play that mentioned watergate.
The one really big goof is Harvey Weinstein (combined with industry shill Leonard Maltin). They could as easily have been talking about `Lord of the Rings:' huge marvelous cities in New Zealand, stock that steals 2000 eggs, deliberate pies in the face, and even the soap opera about our poor sojourner. Rings or films, it is all magic.
Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.
In 1988, Peter Greenaway made a little film called `Death in the Seine.' Filmmakers have long played with notions of created reality, but this was a clever take: real people drowned in the Seine during a period that by political accidents was erased from the calendar. But we have the reports of the coroner for these anonymous people. By `showing' them, Greenaway was reinvesting their lives with reality. An amazing idea, made sweeter by having the `corpses' obviously be alive.
In 1994, film enthusiast Peter Jackson did much the same thing with `Heavenly Creatures.' He took a real story about a famous but now forgotten case and turned it into an essay on constructed film reality. In his case, this involved Orson Welles and an ersatz Camelot named Borovnia (borrow nvia).
To judge from that film, he took the matter seriously. To judge from this one, he took it personally. The `creatures' weren't the girls, instead the fictitious beings they animated.
The next year he made this film with himself as the animator. In both cases, he plays with the nature of writing. He references Welles, of course, and `Picnic at Hanging Rock,' of course. But most of all he plays under the kiwi skin with all sorts of inside jokes to exploit the national foible.
But there's enough for the rest of us, especially if you love movies. He says this is just a joke, and he may even believe it. But there's plenty of intelligent foolery here: just in the `Salome' section. This is a recreation using exclusively modern idioms. This is post- 'Battleship Potemkin' and more obviously post- `Godfather.'
It is as if we were given a Shakespeare play that mentioned watergate.
The one really big goof is Harvey Weinstein (combined with industry shill Leonard Maltin). They could as easily have been talking about `Lord of the Rings:' huge marvelous cities in New Zealand, stock that steals 2000 eggs, deliberate pies in the face, and even the soap opera about our poor sojourner. Rings or films, it is all magic.
Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.