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Showing posts from April, 2013

144. US director Terrence Malick’s sixth feature film “To the Wonder” (2012): Love your spouse in the context of divine love

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T errence Malick’s films tend to perplex certain audiences. To the Wonder is likely to leave many viewers, used to the typical Hollywood movies with unambiguous narrative tales, totally stone cold. And yet it is true poetry on celluloid for others. Malick’s cinema is different from the average Hollywood fare. In many ways, To the Wonder is comparatively easy to appreciate amongst Malick’s body of work because this is a film that deals essentially with a regular man-woman love affair, a subject that would go down well with for most traditional movie-goers.  However, it is the treatment of the subject that is so different from the usual fare, not the subject. A major difference that an attentive viewer will pick up is that when you hear the voice-over of Marina, the main protagonist, the constant occurrence of  “you” in her monologue do not merely refer to her beau Neil but also to God. A viewer is likely to assume that she is addressing her male companion because he...

143. Italian filmmaker Paolo Sorrentino’s film made in USA “This Must Be the Place” (2011): Place and time continuum reinforced for the reflective viewer

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P aolo Sorrentino is definitely a talented director.  His films considerably rely on visual statements.  Sorrentino’s This Must Be the Place indirectly urges the film’s viewer to observe the details of visual statements, which often put in context the quaint sense of humor of the spoken word in the film.  That does not mean the viewer should miss the quirky spoken words either, such as the deadpan non sequitur " Why is Lady Gaga?"  The most important lines, stated nonchalantly, come mid-way into the film and those lines are the key to understanding it: “ You have to choose a moment in your life to be not afraid. ” “ And have you chosen that moment ?” “ Yes, I have .” Those critical lines explain the entire film for those who might find the film exasperating to understand, beyond the obvious strands of the film being a cocktail of a road movie, a detective movie and a Nazi-criminal-hunt movie.  It also a vengeance movie but one that presents the antith...