Following the suicide of a friend, a group of seven eartwhile college friends meet in a lovely big house in the country.
Here they dress in horrible 80s styles with "mullet" hairstyles.They are not interesting or mysterious. They take drugs, mainly marijuana, occasionally a strange pill... Do you care? I don't.
They have poor table manners. Many shots feature socks.
The film supposedly examines value changes and disillusiion over the years, but actually characters are merely annoying and narcissistic (they very much enjoy videoing themselves) and have no depth. The film does not give not enough background shading, and their style of conversation is too superficial. The soundtrack is given too much prominance, as if the makers imagined that having catchy songs playing throughout the film would compensate for plot development or character analysis.
When I was a child I hoped life was not like this, I still hope it isn't: empty pointless people slopping about conducting vacuous affairs and talking rubbish and showing off: no glory or joy, no challenges or real compassion, no love, glory or honour. A pox on these people.
Showing posts with label William Hurt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label William Hurt. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Smoke (1995): review- 2/10
Talk based picture centred round Keitel's cigar shop in New York and the characters who pass through there.
The film is in-necessarily slow, and becomes boring. This is for various reasons but:
1. The plot does not contain sufficient tension; indeed it just seems to be made up arbitrarily as it goes along. Ergo, it's boring. This is not the same as slow.
2. Harvey Keitel is the only one who can really hold the screen, and the characters are too blank to sustain sympathy.
3. Lighting and scenography aren't used with any imagination- thie film has the washed out look of a cheap tv soap and lacks atmosphere. Where is the use of music also? We want more than a few bars of Tom Waits.
4. The interlacing of lives is too contrived and it's hard to sense that the young black man is really in danger.
5. Lacks the sense of existential revelation which, I think , must play a part in all good art- certainly the existential art Noir-esque of Auster. That is to ask, where is the sense of magic, or the question, what lies beneath it all?
It's peculiar that these difficulties should have arisen from a Paul Auster penned film, given how very well he does atmosphere and narrative and existential questions in his books.
The film is in-necessarily slow, and becomes boring. This is for various reasons but:
1. The plot does not contain sufficient tension; indeed it just seems to be made up arbitrarily as it goes along. Ergo, it's boring. This is not the same as slow.
2. Harvey Keitel is the only one who can really hold the screen, and the characters are too blank to sustain sympathy.
3. Lighting and scenography aren't used with any imagination- thie film has the washed out look of a cheap tv soap and lacks atmosphere. Where is the use of music also? We want more than a few bars of Tom Waits.
4. The interlacing of lives is too contrived and it's hard to sense that the young black man is really in danger.
5. Lacks the sense of existential revelation which, I think , must play a part in all good art- certainly the existential art Noir-esque of Auster. That is to ask, where is the sense of magic, or the question, what lies beneath it all?
It's peculiar that these difficulties should have arisen from a Paul Auster penned film, given how very well he does atmosphere and narrative and existential questions in his books.
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