Return of the Living SB Movie Experiment: Pontypool

[Sam Punk]

No Country for Old Men

[Next Level was WRONG]

Make Way For Tomorrow (1938)


IMDB

[SsnakeBite, the No1 Frenchman]

Les Parapluies de Cherbourg

Suggested by kidglov3s


I guess musicals just aren't for me,
Because this film may be a classic
But if I may speak frankly
The whole thing just made me sick!

The story could have been good
Lovers separated by war
But I couldn't get in the mood
And so to me it was a bore.

The worst thing for me the entire time
Was that they couldn't be arsed to rhyme!
Making the few times that they did,
Sound jarring and a bit stupid.

I mean come on, it's not that hard!
It's not like I'm more of a bard
And the melody was so generic
I swear, I'm not just being a dick!

They talk like in a normal conversation
Only they sing it for really no reason
Like when a mailman has only one line
Just speaking it would have been just fine.

And that's really the thing,
They never stop singing.
There is really no justification
To have an actor sing just to say "non"

I get that it's a musical
But you gotta take a break, pal
It's supposed to be glamorous
But It just comes off as obnoxious.

And yes, I do realize
That my own rhymes aren't so wise
But you know what? At least I tried!
So excuse me if I am snide.

Next on the list is Karate Kid III,
I haven't seen either previous movie,
How am I gonna make it work?
I have no idea, well, f***.

[kidglov3s]

I wonder how different the experience is when you can understand all the words they're saying, because as a non-French speaker, the dialogue is sort of like its own music.

[SsnakeBite, the No1 Frenchman]

Apr 6, 2015 17:58:42 GMT -5 kidglov3s said:

I wonder how different the experience is when you can understand all the words they're saying, because as a non-French speaker, the dialogue is sort of like its own music.

Yeah, I'm not sure how it came across in my "review", but my main gripe is basically that it didn't need to be sung, which is kind of a problem for a musical. The lyrics don't rhyme (except for a handful of times were they suddenly do, only achieving to make it jarring), the dialogue is casual and doesn't sound like a song and there are plenty of very short if not downright one-word sentences. I really don't think they needed to be singing such lyrical genius as a piece of dialogue that can be translated as "Woah, hey, there! What the heck? - Ah! Forget it!".

It feels really awkward and forced and maybe I'm imagining things but it seemed to me that there were various moments where the actors were visibly uncomfortable with singing lines that don't feel like they should be sung, trying desperately to sound convincing when being forced to put far too much emphasis on a simple "yes" or "no".

In fact, I recently reviewed Thoroughly Modern Millie and I think it offers a good point of comparison as in that one, not all the dialogue was sung (in fact, I think the talk/singing ratio must be about 50/50) and it felt a lot better as having every single line sung quickly becomes annoying to me unless the songs really are excellent or the movie is directed in a way that makes it work, so I appreciated the breaks in the singing, not to mention I feel it helps setting up the next song. And the songs were actually written like songs. In Les Parapluies de Cherbourg, I actually wonder if it wasn't originally written as a regular movie but then they decided to make it a musical and just used the original script without making any modification and told the actors to sing it.

Another thing that made Millie work and where Cherbourg falls short in my opinion is that Millie had a lot of variation in styles and rhythms depending on the action and the mood of the characters. In Cherbourg, there apparently are three leitmotivs but I honestly couldn't tell because every single song sounds the same.

I have to wonder if the reason it was so popular in France isn't because of the story. You see, the main conflict comes from Geneviève's boyfriend being sent to fight the war in Algeria, which had only ended two years before this movie was released (and if I'm not mistaken, was still not officially considered a war by the French government but an "event" and I did notice the film carefully avoided using the word "war"). Seeing how a lot of people lost loved ones during said war and many more did get them back only to find them broken both physically and psychologically (the Algerian War became infamous for the copious use of torture on both sides of the conflict), I imagine many people back in the days sympathized with the characters.


Did I just review the movie twice?

[kidglov3s]

Apr 7, 2015 2:46:27 GMT -5 SsnakeBite, the No1 Frenchman said:

Apr 6, 2015 17:58:42 GMT -5 kidglov3s said:

I wonder how different the experience is when you can understand all the words they're saying, because as a non-French speaker, the dialogue is sort of like its own music.

Yeah, I'm not sure how it came across in my "review", but my main gripe is basically that it didn't need to be sung, which is kind of a problem for a musical. The lyrics don't rhyme (except for a handful of times were they suddenly do, only achieving to make it jarring), the dialogue is casual and doesn't sound like a song and there are plenty of very short if not downright one-word sentences. I really don't think they needed to be singing such lyrical genius as a piece of dialogue that can be translated as "Woah, hey, there! What the heck? - Ah! Forget it!".

It feels really awkward and forced and maybe I'm imagining things but it seemed to me that there were various moments where the actors were visibly uncomfortable with singing lines that don't feel like they should be sung, trying desperately to sound convincing when being forced to put far too much emphasis on a simple "yes" or "no".

In fact, I recently reviewed Thoroughly Modern Millie and I think it offers a good point of comparison as in that one, not all the dialogue was sung (in fact, I think the talk/singing ratio must be about 50/50) and it felt a lot better as having every single line sung quickly becomes annoying to me unless the songs really are excellent or the movie is directed in a way that makes it work, so I appreciated the breaks in the singing, not to mention I feel it helps setting up the next song. And the songs were actually written like songs. In Les Parapluies de Cherbourg, I actually wonder if it wasn't originally written as a regular movie but then they decided to make it a musical and just used the original script without making any modification and told the actors to sing it.

Another thing that made Millie work and where Cherbourg falls short in my opinion is that Millie had a lot of variation in styles and rhythms depending on the action and the mood of the characters. In Cherbourg, there apparently are three leitmotivs but I honestly couldn't tell because every single song sounds the same.

I have to wonder if the reason it was so popular in France isn't because of the story. You see, the main conflict comes from Geneviève's boyfriend being sent to fight the war in Algeria, which had only ended two years before this movie was released (and if I'm not mistaken, was still not officially considered a war by the French government but an "event" and I did notice the film carefully avoided using the word "war"). Seeing how a lot of people lost loved ones during said war and many more did get them back only to find them broken both physically and psychologically (the Algerian War became infamous for the copious use of torture on both sides of the conflict), I imagine many people back in the days sympathized with the characters.


Did I just review the movie twice?

Well mission accomplished if I was able to drag out the discussion of what I hold as a tie for my favorite movie (alongside Dawn of the Dead). I think that how the conversation is casual and doesn't quite rhyme makes it more exciting for me, and I guess it also helps that I adore both the sociohistorical elements of the story, the ambiguity of it all and the wonderful music from Legrand.

That said, if I was a native French speaker I have to imagine my reception of it would be completely different (much like how I think me not being able to understand Japanese without subtitles helps my enjoyment of subtitled DBZ).

I also have a tremendous fondness for Thoroughly Modern Millie, but I wonder if that's not just because I associate it with a wonderfully pleasant afternoon when I did gobs of reading for University while watching TMM/Change of Habit/Saw IV.

[SsnakeBite, the No1 Frenchman]

The Karate Kid, Part III

Suggested by J is Justice


I'm honestly what sure what to say and I do believe I would have more to say had I seen the previous two films as it felt a bit awkward to me having these characters act like everything is familiar while I was left in the dark on most of their backstory. Alright, so the story is that the villain from the first movie, John Kreese, is back with a vengeance. His dojo is ruined as all of his students left after Daniel's victory. It's one of those times where I wonder if there was a key plot element from the first movie that I'm missing because otherwise... did everyone seriously leave after he lost ONE match?! And his guy still made it to the finals so he can't be that bad a teacher. Granted, picking a fight with Mr. Miyagi afterwards probably didn't win him any brownie point but since there's no visible legal repercussion, I imagine he story isn't all that infamous and some people still wouldn't mind taking lessons from him.

But anyway, he asks an old army pal called Terry Silver for help in getting his dojo back on track and getting his revenge on Daniel and Miyagi. And let me tell you, this guy is one of the most ridiculously cliché movie villains you'll see. He's filthy rich, he's slimy, he revels in mocking the heroes' principles, he is the owner of a waste disposal company who gloats about bribing officials and dumping waste wherever (which isn't relevant to the story, it's just there so we know he's an asshole). And he cackles evilly. A lot. All the time, in fact. It's almost a parody of 80's movie villain, only played straight. And he is also a karate expert because of course he is.

And boy, what a revenge! Their master plan is to make Daniel lose his title and corrupt him by having Silver become his new master and encourage him to be aggressive and show no mercy. Oh and I do mean make him lose his title as Silver hires Mike Barnes, "karate's Bad Boy" (whose reputation would be easier to believe if his "intense" face didn't resemble a "terrified" face so much), to intimidate him into defending his title, which he originally intended to vacate because Mr. Miyagi told him that karate should be used for meaningful things and not for defending a trophy (which begs the question of why he helped Daniel win the tournament from the first movie in the first place). And that's their endgame: f*** with a kid (played by a Ralph Macchio who is now his 30s) and his old master.

And that's actually what occupies a large chunk the movie: the villain's henchmen trying to force Daniel to sign some paper to agree to defend his title. Gotta say, not many movies revolve around the bad guys trying to make the hero to file paperwork. Oh, and did I mention that for some reason, the tournament now has the rule that the champion only has to fight the winner of the tournament and not participate in it himself? Seems awfully unfair to the other participants but hey, if boxing champions get to pick their challengers, I guess that works too.

Meanwhile, there's a subplot of Daniel squandering his college money to help Mr. Miyagi setup a bonsai shop (although to be fair, I can't really say ditching college to start something that will actually get you money is a bad idea). They do this after Daniel is forced to live with Mr. Miyagi when they discover the building Daniel's apartment was bulldozed while he and Daniel were away and I guess in America, there are no laws about giving tenants eviction notices or a minimum delay so they can find another place to live in. You can just wreck that shit whenever you want without telling them.

In the end, Daniel recovers his way, the villains are exposed and our hero remains champion thanks to that unfair rule about the champion only fighting the winner of the tournament as well as the villains' stupid idea of intentionally losing points until sudden death is called so they can beat him up longer, while Daniel doesn't get any offence in until the very end and acting like he has no martial arts experience despite spending three movies trainer with martial arts experts. Also, I'm pretty sure the referee used to be a wrestling ref because even after warning Barnes that he'll be disqualified if he pulls one more illegal move, he still never disqualifies him even after he keeps doing it.

So... yeah... pretty silly movie whose plot seems to mostly rely on the villains' stupidity and which may or may not be rendered even worse by the previous movies. And apparently, when I don't know what to say, I just do a play-by-play of the movie.


Next time, we have another movie with a wise old Asian man as a main character, but this one will probably be noticeably darker (and not just because it's in black and white, har har), it's Ikiru.

[SsnakeBite, the No1 Frenchman]

Ikiru

Suggested by bob


Ikiru is the story of an ageing man who learns he has cancer and only has few months left to live. So he embarks on one last trip with his best friend shotgunning beer cans, camping, partying and all that while a documentary crew films hi-... wait, no, that's the other film about a man who gets cancer and then goes on a journey pondering what's most important in life. What actually happens is that he realizes that for several decades, he hasn't really lived, merely going through the motions.

More importantly, he realizes he hasn't actually accomplished anything. he spent 30 years working for some public office and has nothing out of the ordinary to show for it. This realization makes him want to do something about it, and so he does, first by actually enjoying the moments he has left, and then by trying to do something to help others.

This is basically this film's entire theme: the importance of making a positive impact in other people's, which I found that very interesting. You'd think the movie itself was about cancer, but it really isn't. It's more about asking yourself "if you were to die now, would you be satisfied with what you've accomplished?". The main character's problem isn't so much that he's going to die, it's that he's going to die without having done anything he feels genuinely proud about. But it also shows that it's never too late to make things work as even with less than half a year left to live, he still did manage to pull off that one thing he wanted to do to give a meaning to his life. It really does make you wonder if in reality, people aren't so much afraid of death as they are of not leaving a memory.

This brings me to a bizarre choice made in making this movie. About two thirds into the movie (it's a pretty long one so there's still about 50 minutes left by that point), the movie suddenly skips five months, where the main character has died and form that point out, almost the entirety of the remainder of the film takes place in one room during his funerals while his family, friends and co-workers remember him, with only a few flashbacks changing the pace.

This is the one thing in this movie I kind of have a problem with. Now, I do get why they did it (I think). That part is not about his life but about his legacy (and how some people might try to appropriate it), about the influence his realization and his actions have had on other people's lives and so they wanted to show the rest of the story from the point of view of the other characters. That's actually pretty clever, I have no problem with the concept of it, but I can't help but feel this part didn't need to be this long, not to mention it feels a bit dull to see all this in one room with very similar-looking shots when the rest of the movie gave as a fair amount of variety and had a better flow.

My other big problem with this part is that whereas in the rest of the movie, everything is shown through the characters' interactions, here they pretty much just explicitly state what they think and it feels like the movie is suddenly hammering down the moral of the story, which is a bit of a shame when he rest of it did a good job of making that same point subtly, by illustrating it.

But overall, still a very good film, beautifully shot and not nearly as depressing as you might expect. It even had a few bits that made me genuinely laugh.


But now we move on to something completely different as the next movie is what feels like it has become a staple of this experiment, a comedy about hockey, as we'll be taking a look at Goon.

[bob]

Monty Python and the Holy Grail

[SsnakeBite, the No1 Frenchman]

Special Review! Mad Max: Fury Road

Suggested by myself


As I did before with The Purge: Anarchy, I have decided to give you an extra review, of a recently released movie (and indeed, it was released today in France). Partly to atone for my slow schedule, partly because why the Hell not?

GOOD GOD that movie is cathartic! You've seen the trailers, right? Well, if you thought they looked awesome, you will LOVE this movie because it's pretty much two hours of that (in fact, almost everything from the trailers is from the first twenty minutes of the film alone). And if you're worried it might get repetitive after a while, don't be, Miller really knows how to diversify things and keep it interesting. Better yet, he knows how to actually tell a story with his action scenes, and so the plot and the chases are intricately linked (which has to be expected considering almost all of the movie takes place while driving). With that said, there are also some quieter moments and those are done very well too, giving the characters some very good moments.

Speaking of the characters, they are in my opinion one of this movie's major assets. They all get their own moments of awesome and Max and Furiosa pretty much work as an action couple (despite the fact that there isn't even a hint of romance between the two). Even the bad guys are somewhat likeable. In a film like that, you'd expect Immortan Joe to be a ruthless killer and torturer... which he kind of is, actually, but not to his men, who he acts surprisingly fatherly towards and seems to genuinely care about, but also have high expectations of. You even kind of feel sorry for the villains at times.

The movie also has a lot of great female characters, with Imperator Furiosa leading the pack (both literally and figuratively) for most of the movie. In fact, I love that this is one of those rare movies that has women who are badasses without turning them into obnoxious Mary Sues. And it doesn't take kids gloves with them either. They're not the kind of girls who conveniently never have a scratch on their face after a fight. They take hits, they get hurt, but man, they dish out ten times as much as they take. They are action heroines and by God they play the part all the way.

And while the characters are one of the biggest draws of the film in my opinion, THE best thing about it is the universe. I love this kind of movies that create a world that you may not fully understand but still works, that feels real, with its own culture. Not everything is explained but it doesn't need to be and you want to see more of it.

So yeah, I highly, highly recommend it. Believe the hype, it won't disappoint. What a film. What a lovely film.

[Glitch]

One of these you will get to Sanctum. That movies needs to be taken down a few pegs.

[Deleted]

Pink Floyd The Wall

[ThereIsNoAbsurdistOnlyZuul]

Apr 6, 2015 7:51:26 GMT -5 SsnakeBite, the No1 Frenchman said:

Les Parapluies de Cherbourg

Suggested by kidglov3s


I guess musicals just aren't for me,
Because this film may be a classic
But if I may speak frankly
The whole thing just made me sick!

The story could have been good
Lovers separated by war
But I couldn't get in the mood
And so to me it was a bore.

The worst thing for me the entire time
Was that they couldn't be arsed to rhyme!
Making the few times that they did,
Sound jarring and a bit stupid.

I mean come on, it's not that hard!
It's not like I'm more of a bard
And the melody was so generic
I swear, I'm not just being a dick!

They talk like in a normal conversation
Only they sing it for really no reason
Like when a mailman has only one line
Just speaking it would have been just fine.

And that's really the thing,
They never stop singing.
There is really no justification
To have an actor sing just to say "non"

I get that it's a musical
But you gotta take a break, pal
It's supposed to be glamorous
But It just comes off as obnoxious.

And yes, I do realize
That my own rhymes aren't so wise
But you know what? At least I tried!
So excuse me if I am snide.

Next on the list is Karate Kid III,
I haven't seen either previous movie,
How am I gonna make it work?
I have no idea, well, f***.

Okay, firstly, awesome.

Secondly, technically if there is no spoken dialog, it's an Opera.

[SsnakeBite, the No1 Frenchman]

Goon

Suggested by @supersweetbotch


The story of a man hopping from job to job trying to find his way until he unintentionally end up beating the shit out of a hockey player who was looking for trouble, to the point that a coach of a losing team ends up hiring him as an enforcer to take out opposing players. He gains popularity and is eventually transferred to a major league team, where his reputation keeps rising and people dream of seeing take on Ross Rhea, an enforcer famous for being overly violent and who is about to retire. Meanwhile, he also has to deal with disapproving parents (although his gay brother is supportive of him), a budding love story with a woman who's already taken and jealousy from one of his teammates.

The film works as a comedy, it did have many moments that made me at least smile if not laugh out loud, and I especially like the fact that Doug Glatt, the main character, is so ridiculously nice and gentle despite being hired to beat people up. I thought most of the rest of the cast was pretty obnoxious at first but they did grow on me through the course of the movie and did want to to see them win.

However, unless you're really into hockey, I'm not sure if you'll really be able to get behind the main character's... cause. I mean, let's admit it, this basically is the story of the least sporting part of hockey, which I imagine federations and teams usually try to downplay. Yeah, I know there was apparently a minor controversy over this movie being released soon after the deaths of several enforcers but even without that, I'm not sure we need to be glorifying this kind of behaviour so unless you're a massive hockey fan and consider fights to merely be another part of the game, I don't think you'll be very engaged in this story.

I mean, for most of the movie, they do say that Glatt's motivation is to protect his teammates but by the end, it's pretty much bare-knuckles boxing that just happens to be taking place inside a hockey rink. It's a sports movie that makes the bizarre choice of focusing on the least athletic aspect of the sport. It seems to me that it's kind of like if they made a movie about European football by following a player who's really good at diving and tackling people in the legs.

I also think this is one of these movies that would have gained a lot from focusing solely on the main plot. The stuff with the disapproving parents isn't developed very far and not really resolved and the romance sub-plot felt tacked-on to me. I actually kind of wonder if those were demands by executives to add some extra emotional baggage to the film. They're not necessarily bad, they just don't add much in my view.

Oh well, it was still an enjoyable movie, I just feel it was made specifically for hardcore hockey fans.


Coming next, we have a movie which I hear is a bit of a mindf***. Works for me, I like mindf***s. It's The Holy Mountain

[nickcave]

The Devil and Daniel Johnston

[Deleted]

May 30, 2015 8:20:25 GMT -5 SsnakeBite, the No1 Frenchman said:

Goon

Suggested by @supersweetbotch


The story of a man hopping from job to job trying to find his way until he unintentionally end up beating the shit out of a hockey player who was looking for trouble, to the point that a coach of a losing team ends up hiring him as an enforcer to take out opposing players. He gains popularity and is eventually transferred to a major league team, where his reputation keeps rising and people dream of seeing take on Ross Rhea, an enforcer famous for being overly violent and who is about to retire. Meanwhile, he also has to deal with disapproving parents (although his gay brother is supportive of him), a budding love story with a woman who's already taken and jealousy from one of his teammates.

The film works as a comedy, it did have many moments that made me at least smile if not laugh out loud, and I especially like the fact that Doug Glatt, the main character, is so ridiculously nice and gentle despite being hired to beat people up. I thought most of the rest of the cast was pretty obnoxious at first but they did grow on me through the course of the movie and did want to to see them win.

However, unless you're really into hockey, I'm not sure if you'll really be able to get behind the main character's... cause. I mean, let's admit it, this basically is the story of the least sporting part of hockey, which I imagine federations and teams usually try to downplay. Yeah, I know there was apparently a minor controversy over this movie being released soon after the deaths of several enforcers but even without that, I'm not sure we need to be glorifying this kind of behaviour so unless you're a massive hockey fan and consider fights to merely be another part of the game, I don't think you'll be very engaged in this story.

I mean, for most of the movie, they do say that Glatt's motivation is to protect his teammates but by the end, it's pretty much bare-knuckles boxing that just happens to be taking place inside a hockey rink. It's a sports movie that makes the bizarre choice of focusing on the least athletic aspect of the sport. It seems to me that it's kind of like if they made a movie about European football by following a player who's really good at diving and tackling people in the legs.

I also think this is one of these movies that would have gained a lot from focusing solely on the main plot. The stuff with the disapproving parents isn't developed very far and not really resolved and the romance sub-plot felt tacked-on to me. I actually kind of wonder if those were demands by executives to add some extra emotional baggage to the film. They're not necessarily bad, they just don't add much in my view.

Oh well, it was still an enjoyable movie, I just feel it was made specifically for hardcore hockey fans.


Coming next, we have a movie which I hear is a bit of a mindf***. Works for me, I like mindf***s. It's The Holy Mountain

You're kind of right that the movie is more enjoyable if you're a hockey fan since there is a lot of references of many real life hockey incidents, stuff you would know if you ever played hockey, and just the little things like the coach looking like the most cliched minor league coach and the dialogue. But f*** the movie is extremely quotable. Also the plan is to make the movie into a trilogy loosely based on this song where it probably ends with him being called up to the majors for a game or two but eventually scoring a goal as the climax of the film.



The funny thing is Kevin Smith wants to adapt that song into a movie as his final film and was suppose to film it in 2010 but didn't have enough funding. Now he's planning to make it a six part mini series.

[SsnakeBite, the No1 Frenchman]

The Holy Mountain

Suggested by Strotha


You can always count on Strotha to bring on some bizarre stuff to the table. So here we have this movie that... f***, how do I even describe this?

...

Okay. Think of Zardoz without the cheesy aspect. It's basically exactly what people think about when they hear the words "arthouse movie". A collection of random symbolic and religious references that don't really mean anything when put together but art snobs will pretend they do, overabundance of nudity and gore that would be called exploitive if it were in a less pretentious movie, little to nothing being explained, very conservative use of dialogue (in fact the first real bit of dialogue occurs 30 minutes into the movie) all while being undeniably beautifully shot. So you might think it's pretentious bullshit that people claim is genius because for some reason, if it can't be explained and looks pretty, then it MUST be incredibly intelligent. Well, that's what I thought too. At first.

You see, the whole movie is full of religious and philosophical references, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Hindusim, Islam, even a bit of Satanism for good measure, and of course various political and philosophical concepts, but they never seem to fit together. There is no link, no narrative weaving them together into a coherent, or even semi-coherent story, so you end up constantly thinking "well, I guess that's a reference to this and I guess it's supposed to mean that" but you never understand why any of those references are there, not helped by the fact that there appears to be satire of a bunch of other things, including of pretentious art that tries to pass gratuitous nudity as being profound, and of overly elaborate interpretations of religious texts, which seem rather hypocritical of this movie. It just seems random and you quickly suspect it's only here to look profound with no actual substance behind it. Again, that's what I thought too. At first.

Now, at some point, it seems like some kind of actual story starts developing as our main character, a Jesus analogue that's not even trying to be subtle about it, embarks on a journey to get to the summit of the titular Holy Mountain, accompanied by seven people who I think represent various defects of society, from greed to violence to sexism to propaganda to the dehumanization of people (note that it takes them a while to actually start the journey as first they introduce every one of these characters in their own segments, each own lasting several minutes) and led by a nameless alchemist. And even at this point, it still doesn't make a whole lot of sense as the characters indulge in a series of nonsensical rituals and there doesn't appear to be a deeper message than the generic "materialism is bad". I was not impressed and was ready to dismiss the whole thing as pretentious bullshit.

But then, something happened and I'm going to put it in a spoiler tag because although it happens at the very end, it changed the meaning of the entire movie for me, and actually made me think it may genuinely be genius. This is your last warning. If you have any interest in seeing this movie and analysing it for yourself, do NOT click on this spoiler tag:

SPOILER: Click to show

As the characters reach the summit of the Holy Mountain, they see the "nine immortals" they hoped to meet and overtake, after spending three hours meditating, they finally discover that the "immortals" are nothing but mannequins and the whole thing was a hoax setup by their leader, who then proceeds to break the fourth wall by pointing out that this is not reality but a film and telling the audience to "forget about the Holy Mountain".

Now this may look like just another piece of nonsense, but it actually does make sense to me. You see, it's basically telling the characters from the film that their quest for immortality was meaningless and that instead of seeking an elusive meaning to life, they should focus on actually living their life (a scene just before that one had the alchemist sending off one of the characters to start a family with the woman he loves).

And this is when a bulb suddenly lit up in my brain: the entire film was never supposed to make sense. It WAS just nonsensical references and trying to give it meaning is a fruitless endeavour and people should focus on works that actually have a meaning instead of rattling their brains on aimless pretentious drivel, the satire of art and bizarre interpretations of religious texts foreshadowing the conclusion that people try way too hard to make sense of things that don't make any.

So the moral of the story is: don't try to find the meaning of life, because there is none. MAKE the meaning of your life. And don't waste your time trying to find profound meaning in things that have nothing to offer but empty pretence, use your intellect on something that actually makes you think.

It's makes the movie surprisingly smarter than it seems and, oddly enough, probably the most straightforward of arthouse films: if there's no meaning, don't look for one, look elsewhere for something that does have one.

Or maybe I missed the mark entirely and it really is just meaningless pretentious bullshit trying to pass utter nonsense as intellectual. Whatever. You make your own decision.


And I'm not done with scenic movies as next time, I'll be taking a look at Lawrence of Arabia

[Sam Punk]

The Other Guys

[Deleted]

Prisoners

[bob]

I was wondering if you were still doing this......and since you are I'm suggesting Pixels