obie
23 Nov 2003, 12:16 PM
Perhaps the best-made film of the year. Note that I didn't say "best film", just "best-made film" -- very good acting and some incredible editing makes this a lot more intriguing than it probably deserves to be, given a plot that's been cherry-picked from a half-dozen other films, including Guillermo Arriaga's own Amores Perros.
It's heavy stuff. Don't take a date unless your date is a doctor or a film student. At several points I felt geniune fear of what was happening on screen, and despite a full house in the theater, nobody walked out smiling. And the ad campaign for this film, which strongly hints at some uplifting story of family redemption, is the biggest load of crap I've seen in years.
If you don't want to know what's going on, stop reading after this paragraph. But just know that it's not linear storytelling (especially for the first 20 minutes where no scene seems to be under 30 seconds long and none of them have any real connection at all), and no, you won't really be able to put every scene into a linear plot even once it's over. The basic premise reveals itself after about 90 minutes, but you just have to go with it and trust that all things will be revealed as it goes on.
(spoilers begin here) All Arriaga has done is taken the basic plot line of Amores Perros -- three people with different stories, joined together by a car crash -- and turned it into a rather basic revenge / redemption plot, with bits of recent Hollywood movies Blood Work and Bounce thrown in for good measure. If the movie were shown in standard linear fashion, it would not be anything terribly special. But the editing makes this into a great film to watch and decipher. It reveals itself slowly, and not without a couple of cinematic head fakes. You feel smarter as you figure it out.
The performances of the three main characters (at least one of whom are on screen for at least 95% of the time) propel the movie -- any time you have three of the top ten actors in the industry today in the same film (Sean Penn, Benicio Del Toro, Naomi Watts), you will have some bravura performances. I found Del Toro's ex-con-turned-saint a bit overdone, but Penn and Watts are tremendous.
Arriaga has more talent than he knows what to do with, and this is bravura filmmaking. Film students will be watching this for decades. Next time, though, I just hope that he gets himself a new storyline.
It's heavy stuff. Don't take a date unless your date is a doctor or a film student. At several points I felt geniune fear of what was happening on screen, and despite a full house in the theater, nobody walked out smiling. And the ad campaign for this film, which strongly hints at some uplifting story of family redemption, is the biggest load of crap I've seen in years.
If you don't want to know what's going on, stop reading after this paragraph. But just know that it's not linear storytelling (especially for the first 20 minutes where no scene seems to be under 30 seconds long and none of them have any real connection at all), and no, you won't really be able to put every scene into a linear plot even once it's over. The basic premise reveals itself after about 90 minutes, but you just have to go with it and trust that all things will be revealed as it goes on.
(spoilers begin here) All Arriaga has done is taken the basic plot line of Amores Perros -- three people with different stories, joined together by a car crash -- and turned it into a rather basic revenge / redemption plot, with bits of recent Hollywood movies Blood Work and Bounce thrown in for good measure. If the movie were shown in standard linear fashion, it would not be anything terribly special. But the editing makes this into a great film to watch and decipher. It reveals itself slowly, and not without a couple of cinematic head fakes. You feel smarter as you figure it out.
The performances of the three main characters (at least one of whom are on screen for at least 95% of the time) propel the movie -- any time you have three of the top ten actors in the industry today in the same film (Sean Penn, Benicio Del Toro, Naomi Watts), you will have some bravura performances. I found Del Toro's ex-con-turned-saint a bit overdone, but Penn and Watts are tremendous.
Arriaga has more talent than he knows what to do with, and this is bravura filmmaking. Film students will be watching this for decades. Next time, though, I just hope that he gets himself a new storyline.