| Author | Message | ||
     Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.157.114.136 |
It was 'ok'. Some folk get chased and killed atmospherically. But >Sigh< - where's the epiphany in that? I'm inclined to shrug. Feel bad a bit, maybe, but then shrug. Is that what was expected of me? Was that really all they had in mind?  | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 67.116.103.241 |
Just change "killed" to "died," and you have here the perfect review of THE HAPPENING. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.242.126 |
Tony, it strikes me that you're watching the wrong kind of films entirely for this epiphany you seek. A depressing reality-based horror film isn't going to provide it, mate. You're after something a little more mystical, methinks. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.3.65.135 |
Try the Texas Chainsaw Massacre for something a little more life-affirming. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 160.6.1.47 |
"A depressing reality-based horror film isn't going to provide it, mate. You're after something a little more mystical, methinks." I only find films depressing if they don't have that epiphany Tony's talking about. A great film will exalt us, no matter how grim its contents are. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.242.126 |
To, me a depressing film is a great film. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.157.25.128 |
'Death in Venice' has an overtly depressing audit trail but an exalting aftertaste. | ||
| Karim Ghahwagi (Karim) Username: Karim Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 80.167.124.223 |
'Try the Texas Chainsaw Massacre for something a little more life-affirming' For sure. Brings you in a great mood that one- shows that it is possible to create legendary cinema with very little budget! Bloody effective cinema! | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.157.114.136 |
Not mystical - just to be given an insight, a flash of something new, my world expanded. You see Naked was bleak but I was exhilarated by it - the odd look on Thewliss's face when no-one else was looking at him made us realise he doubted and hated himself, was not as certain as he made out. It was the content of this film that left me glum; two folk get scared and SPOILER killed. What am I to get from that? If someone can tell me, if there was something I missed, I'd be grateful to hear it. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.3.65.135 |
Well, if you really want to fiddle around the edges, you could make up stuff about the two central characters - both middle-class, one of them a teacher of children, the other a writer (of what, I didn't catch). They've gone to live in a secluded location, and why? I can think of a few likely reasons. Are they therefore preaching what they don't practice? Then there's the manmade structure underground - a labyrinth under-girding a wood. Are the kids products of nature or rather social creations? What's their motivation? We hear at the end that they just wanted to play - play in what way? What game are they excluded from? One in which writers and teachers can afford to live in such huge houses? (That's something I found unlikely - might there be inherited wealth involved here? Another exclusive game.) Or is the game one in which everybody must eventually participate, and is instructed to do so via a process of socialisation? At the end the kids seem to board a school bus - is what they've done protest against this necessity? Resistance? Boredom? Resentment? Pure undiluted evil (they emerge from a wood to catch their ride)? You decide. But plenty of questions if we look for them. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.157.114.136 |
I suppose, but it felt like an anecdote, not much more. I looked into it and it's apparently about the fear of the French of their neighbouring countries, their problems bleeding over the border. Apparently the woman teaches Romanian kids, who are to be honest considered a bit feral and prevalent in certain parts, what with Ceaucescu's law that his country had to keep having kids and so many of them being abandoned. The kids do board a school bus, yes - these are kids the woman has been 'helping'. I actually liked these details but just felt it wasn't enough to nourish a film (I did like the beginning, though; the woman going home, the man on the computer 'playing' when he should have been working.). And the bag the kid is using on the woman? It's the equivalent of those pop bottles kids here use to smoke whatever drugs it is they smoke. While watching the film I kept thinking it reminded me of a modern take on Halloween, the score of which at times sounded like this ones, and I wondered why I preferred Halloween even though in many ways the stuff around the 'edges' is lesser. But what is deep? What is meaningful? Halloween felt psychically meatier even though it probably said less... Maybe, when it boils down to it, Halloween was just a bit more entertaining. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
It's that old devil called taste again, Tony. I thought ILS was stunning and genuinely terrifying. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.157.114.136 |
Thing is, maybe it was because the delicacy of much of it made it seem, because of the horror bits, as if the good bits were accidental? Maybe the chasey stuff distracted me from the good stuff. I think the director will do better next time, to be fair. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.3.65.135 |
The horror bits struck me as being deceptively simple. It's a hard thing to pull off getting the 'crescendo' right. Lovecraft could do it. I think this film does it, too. It works delicately to that nasty last scene. It may not be GREAT ART, but it does the business. For me, anyway. |