| RATING: | 80% |
| FORMAT: | DVD |
Elliptical storytelling bound together with fantastic, Bartókian music and delightfully appropriate touches of Johannes BRAHMS.
Director P T ANDERSON plays with the grammar of film but produces nothing truly innovative. Its implicit admission of less than greatness lies in the movieés attempt to recreate the best that Hollywood formerly produced, before rampant visual explicitness and swear words adversely affected the simple art of storytelling.
However, the film lacks any real understanding of what it pastiches. There is nothing one has not already seen many times before in the tale of a man who loses a soul he had already lost in gaining the world through vast wealth. There could, for example, have been an analysis of the social structures and institutions that produce such men - to more fully explain the unfolding historical drama - but such an understanding is simply beyond the film’s ken. This is an oddly ahistorical period piece that proves the past really can be a foreign country without a keen appreciation of which the present makes less sense than it otherwise could.
This old-fashionedness in disguise is indicative of ANDERSON’s decline into formalism as he struggles to unearth suitable material to develop both his personal art as well as the cinematic form itself. This is analogous to the way in which the central character seeks gold - and then oil - to vainly change his life for the better. The largely silent action (a silent film with dialogue, in fact) and insistent, concert-quality music score make this a subtle, insightful and meaningful experience - but, original it ain’t. Instead, we are presented with an admittedly vivid recreation of past times which is formally brilliant but lacking a more fuller insight into human nature that would have made it masterful.
Daniel DAY LEWIS proves what a fabulous actor he can be given decent material in this challenging and demanding watch that is also an above-average treat for the knowledgeable cinephile prepared to make the effort with a film that demands attention.
No comments:
Post a Comment