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Brief movie note.
Nov. 13th, 2006 11:20 amSo, I went to go see The Prestige on... *does math*... Tuesday? Yes, I'm pretty sure it was Tuesday, since we ended up deciding to go home to avoid the Tuesday-night hordes at the Coliseum and saw it at Rideau, instead.
I haven't written anything about it yet since I haven't been able to find the time to express exactly how good it is.
It's the best movie I've seen all year. It's brilliant and savage and fantastic. It's brutal, but it's not the cheap mayonnaise and ketchup brutality of Hostel; the physical damage to people is limited to drowning and broken/lost fingers (not at the same time, except in the sense that everything in the movie flows from everything else), due to tricks gone bad. (Also, some birds are killed.)
The above statement contains an untruth. I am sure within myself that it is not an untruth in spirit--you won't go see The Prestige and discover it involves drowning, fingers, and people being drawn and quartered or thrown into the iron maiden or stretched on the rack. However, the implications of the statement are untrue, and the movie is so beautifully seamlessly constructed that I can't find a way to get closer to the truth of things without spoiling it.
Also: this is a movie about obsession. This is not a movie about over-the-counter I-must-have-her or I-must-get-him obsession, although it's superficially similar to the latter. This is a movie where the "I" is consumed by the obsession, and I was ecstatic to be able to spend a couple of hours watching the protagonists eat themselves alive that way.
It's also beautifully constructed; there are two or three ideas (blending into each other so well it's really a judgement call on exactly how many there are) that show up again and again throughout the movie. It's not repetitive; it's more of a deeper and deeper exploration of where those ideas can take you when they go to and are implemented to the extreme. And events echo each other and are allegories for other events and...
It's like a painting built out of carnival mirrors.
A/y. Cherie Priest has a less (s)lavish review here, and I need to go out and vote and possibly catch the 3:15 showing down at South Keys.
I haven't written anything about it yet since I haven't been able to find the time to express exactly how good it is.
It's the best movie I've seen all year. It's brilliant and savage and fantastic. It's brutal, but it's not the cheap mayonnaise and ketchup brutality of Hostel; the physical damage to people is limited to drowning and broken/lost fingers (not at the same time, except in the sense that everything in the movie flows from everything else), due to tricks gone bad. (Also, some birds are killed.)
The above statement contains an untruth. I am sure within myself that it is not an untruth in spirit--you won't go see The Prestige and discover it involves drowning, fingers, and people being drawn and quartered or thrown into the iron maiden or stretched on the rack. However, the implications of the statement are untrue, and the movie is so beautifully seamlessly constructed that I can't find a way to get closer to the truth of things without spoiling it.
Also: this is a movie about obsession. This is not a movie about over-the-counter I-must-have-her or I-must-get-him obsession, although it's superficially similar to the latter. This is a movie where the "I" is consumed by the obsession, and I was ecstatic to be able to spend a couple of hours watching the protagonists eat themselves alive that way.
It's also beautifully constructed; there are two or three ideas (blending into each other so well it's really a judgement call on exactly how many there are) that show up again and again throughout the movie. It's not repetitive; it's more of a deeper and deeper exploration of where those ideas can take you when they go to and are implemented to the extreme. And events echo each other and are allegories for other events and...
It's like a painting built out of carnival mirrors.
A/y. Cherie Priest has a less (s)lavish review here, and I need to go out and vote and possibly catch the 3:15 showing down at South Keys.
