avnermoriarti
Badass
Friends say I’ve changed. They’re right.
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Post by avnermoriarti on Feb 18, 2020 4:32:48 GMT
Huh, just realised I never actually posted my thoughts on here from when I saw it all the way back in July. So here it comes... it's a big ol meh from me friends. Yes it's beautiful but it's beautiful nothing. Just meanders along and I never felt any kind of emotional connection to the characters or their love story (which I never really bought). Oh, this will be fun. I'm there with you, also, in the last third, the 28 reference and the last shot really annoyed me, but still I think is made with a lot of skill. I'd like to give it a second try but the screener out there leave a lot to be desired.
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Post by DeepArcher on Mar 7, 2020 21:49:11 GMT
So I already wrote my Letterboxd review where I try to sound smart and like I know what I'm talking about. To me, this is a remarkable film that is entirely about the act of spectating and specifically how it relates to the creation and consumption of art. These two characters entirely fall in love through their mutual gazing, and others have noted, it is heavily erotic in that way without being sexual and exploitive. The amount of longing that Merlant and Haenel expresses in their faces alone gets to be almost unbearable at times, that by the first time they actually act on their desire it's just this gratifying sense of relief. It's also a testament to the impeccable chemistry that the two actresses share, that as this romance blossoms, it feels absolutely inevitable -- Sciamma doesn't force this romance to happen, and Merlant and Haenel don't have to do any awkward maneuvering to make us buy it. It's almost like the film was meant to tell a totally different story, then the characters no naturally feel in love that it has to become their love story. This film is immersive to a level that few others are, and as I discussed in my Letterboxd review, this has the mark of any great foreign-language film where there are long stretches in which I actually forgot to pay attention to the subtitles, or didn't care about paying attention to the subtitles, and was just so absorbed in the image. And I don't mean just the imagery, which is certainly nothing short of breathtaking in its own right, but in the pure expression of the visual storytelling and all that's occurring on the faces of Merlant and Haenel that tell us the story in a way that words and language could only fail to do. As chris3 so eloquently put when discussing the film's knockout of an ending, this is a film that's entirely about art -- the love and affection that comes along with the creation of art (true, personal art, rather than that that's just in the name of "convention"), and the power of art as the preservation of memory of the feelings that we once had. To me, that is tremendously real and beautifully, almost painfully so. There are a few small areas where the film is maybe a bit overdone, or bites off more than it can chew: the choice to have the baby next to Sophie during the abortion scene which is just kind of beyond on-the-nose, having Héloïse actually say "Turn around" which felt unnecessary since the audience already "gets" it and we're already saying the line to ourselves before the movie does, etc... and also the last scene, or at least the placement of it, it felt it was something extra. It's incredibly powerful in its own right, but for me it makes more sense for the movie to end before that with Marianne looking at the portrait, it feels more "right" and appropriate to end it with that sense of the once real feeling being preserved by the memory evoked by the art, etc. ... the entire film was building to that as the conclusion that seeing Héloïse "one last time" after that feels like a bit too much story, and perhaps it should have just come before so that the story can naturally progress towards putting the character solely in that painting/into art. That said, I obviously can't really blame Sciamma for wanting to end on that magnificent long short of Haenel, which itself is so expressive and so powerful that the decision feels justified...
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Film Socialism
Based
99.9999% of rock is crap
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Post by Film Socialism on Mar 7, 2020 21:54:24 GMT
good
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Post by theycallmemrfish on Mar 7, 2020 22:54:36 GMT
Here's A Portrait of a Lady in the Line of Fire:
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chris3
Badass
I just ordered a slice of pumpkin pie...
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Post by chris3 on Mar 16, 2020 4:23:00 GMT
SPOILERS
I mean, I've seen it three times now and I need to say that this movie to me represents cinematic perfection. There have been few times in theaters that I've been transported to a place truly outside of myself like I was in this film, where I literally felt like I existed more within its world than I did the reality of the auditorium from which I was experiencing it. And then suddenly, late into the film, something happens. Every piece of the hour and twenty mins or so of the preceding beautiful story could not possibly prepare oneself for a musical moment that rivals anything in movie history. It truly is an all-timer, worthy to be mentioned among setpieces from any era, any genre, any culture of cinema. And from that moment on there's nothing but payoff. From the dual shots of Sophie sewing the potted flowers that eventually die, to every single moment of Marianne and Heloise together, to the radical painting of the reenactment of Sophie's abortion, to the supernatural motif of Heloise's specter and its subsequent glorious payoff in the first of three devastatingly powerful exclamation points of a finale, this masterpiece of a movie pummels the viewer with revelations and rewards that all come from our collective appreciation for art and its ability to capture and preserve fleeting moments from our lives.
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Lubezki
Based
the social distancing
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Post by Lubezki on Mar 18, 2020 20:51:43 GMT
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Mar 18, 2020 20:56:49 GMT
Now they need to get on Girlhood and Tomboy
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Post by theycallmemrfish on Mar 27, 2020 16:45:37 GMT
This is on Hulu now, just FYI.
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chris3
Badass
I just ordered a slice of pumpkin pie...
Posts: 1,050
Likes: 1,045
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Post by chris3 on Mar 28, 2020 16:52:09 GMT
Had to watch it on the small screen to be sure but yeah this is my new #1 of all time.
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Post by Viced on Mar 29, 2020 14:31:03 GMT
solid 7/10, though I can see how it hits many as a masterpiece. I was totally into it for the first hour or so... then kinda bored for around forty minutes... then the last twenty minutes mostly brought me back. I dunno... maybe the possibility of romance was more intriguing to me than the actual romance. But the whole thing is filled with some powerful, beautiful moments. This might have the most visceral waves-crashing-onto-the-beach scene since Vertigo. And tbh, my favorite part was them (appearing to be) playing Egyptian Rat Screw (though I'm sure they called it something else in 1770). And Haenel was pretty remarkable. And on a totally random note... I imagined a cameo from Huppert's Story of Women character around the halfway point... which made my happy.
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Post by futuretrunks on Mar 29, 2020 20:20:25 GMT
Huh, just realised I never actually posted my thoughts on here from when I saw it all the way back in July. So here it comes... it's a big ol meh from me friends. Yes it's beautiful but it's beautiful nothing. Just meanders along and I never felt any kind of emotional connection to the characters or their love story (which I never really bought). Oh, this will be fun. I saw the first 30 minutes and just couldn't get into it. I don't think it's constructed well on a scene to scene basis.
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Post by Martin Stett on May 20, 2020 2:21:04 GMT
It's been three and a half hours since finishing and I've already forgotten that it exists. It is so full of longing glances and looks of desire, but there are no people behind them. They're mannequins.
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