Honestly I wasn't sure how to feel about this film after seeing it.
It looks absolutely gorgeous. The cinematography and production design are really top notch. If I were to judge the merits of this film based purely on its visuals, then I think I'd give it something closer to a 9 or 10. The visuals also comprise some of the best parts of the story telling. Occasionally the film will present an image without context, only to later have the meaning of that image revealed by a character in whatever dialogue driven scene will directly follow that image. It's pretty neat and adds an nice component to the visual splendor beyond simply the surface level appeal.
This element of the visual element of the film though, does hint at what is probably this film's greatest weakness. In the same way that one can become really confused when viewing some of the key images without their meaning revealed until after their presentation, the story of the film as a whole is potentially incomprehensible. I don't think it's because it's necessarily too complicated either. It seems more like the director had no patience for conveying information to the audience. There are key pieces of exposition early on which are never referenced again and that you could easily miss if you aren't laser focused from minute one. This is a problem throughout the film and it's not even limited to expository dialogue. There is one scene in particular when two characters are having what I assume was a deadly showdown. Again, visually very nice. The problem though, was that I couldn't tell who one of the character's was, if they had been mentioned/featured in the film previously, or why the fight was even really happening to begin with.
It's honestly really frustrating, because this film seems to squander so much of the potential I see in the visual elements for reasons that I can't understand. The incomprehensible nature of the story is frankly needless, and I think it severely limits the amount of people who can truly enjoy it. I like a lot of it, and I might watch it again in the future. I think before I recommend it though, I should preface that recommendation by saying that you can't let your attention falter for even a moment, lest you lose track of the narrative completely.
It looks absolutely gorgeous. The cinematography and production design are really top notch. If I were to judge the merits of this film based purely on its visuals, then I think I'd give it something closer to a 9 or 10. The visuals also comprise some of the best parts of the story telling. Occasionally the film will present an image without context, only to later have the meaning of that image revealed by a character in whatever dialogue driven scene will directly follow that image. It's pretty neat and adds an nice component to the visual splendor beyond simply the surface level appeal.
This element of the visual element of the film though, does hint at what is probably this film's greatest weakness. In the same way that one can become really confused when viewing some of the key images without their meaning revealed until after their presentation, the story of the film as a whole is potentially incomprehensible. I don't think it's because it's necessarily too complicated either. It seems more like the director had no patience for conveying information to the audience. There are key pieces of exposition early on which are never referenced again and that you could easily miss if you aren't laser focused from minute one. This is a problem throughout the film and it's not even limited to expository dialogue. There is one scene in particular when two characters are having what I assume was a deadly showdown. Again, visually very nice. The problem though, was that I couldn't tell who one of the character's was, if they had been mentioned/featured in the film previously, or why the fight was even really happening to begin with.
It's honestly really frustrating, because this film seems to squander so much of the potential I see in the visual elements for reasons that I can't understand. The incomprehensible nature of the story is frankly needless, and I think it severely limits the amount of people who can truly enjoy it. I like a lot of it, and I might watch it again in the future. I think before I recommend it though, I should preface that recommendation by saying that you can't let your attention falter for even a moment, lest you lose track of the narrative completely.