Sunday, 21 November 2010

Skeletons
(2010)

60%



It is as if Laurel & Hardy had made an existential comedy about memory and the pain they bring when held as grudges rather than as learning experiences. Add to that the science-fiction underpinnings and we have here a truly eccentric, not to say endearing, movie hybrid.

The difficulty of living with the unresolved memories of others is as hard as ones own. Here people keep secrets from others to make themselves more attractively-perfect; never wanting to realize that this creates an impenetrable barrier between themselves and others - as revealed here. Those excavating for the eponymous skeletons-in-the-closets here must have none of their own otherwise their scientific objectivity is compromised: The main theme here. And yet scientific objectivity is difficult to achieve in reality and does not make for much of a life.

The humor is low key but never rises much above the sarcastic self-contempt of most of the characters. Paprika STEEN is particularly fine as an eccentrically-likable housewife.

Essentially a time-travel movie that avoids trying to fix the past by changing it but fixing the present by facing the past. All the losers here literally lost something important to them and its loss has made their present stand still until they can come to terms with the loss and move out of the limbo of trying to live in the past. It is never good to let sleeping dogs lie. Not as resonant nor as amusing as Being John Malkovich.


Copyright © 2010 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Contact Form:

Name

Email *

Message *

Science:



No science is immune to the infection of politics and the corruption of power.



Jacob Bronowski… (1908 - 74), British scientist, author. Encounter (London, July 1971).


Sleep of Reason:



The dream of reason produces monsters. Imagination deserted by reason creates impossible, useless thoughts. United with reason, imagination is the mother of all art and the source of all its beauty.



Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes… (1746-1828), Spanish painter. Caption to Caprichos, number 43, a series of eighty etchings completed in 1798, satirical and grotesque in form.


Humans & Aliens:



I am human and let nothing human be alien to me.



Terence… (circa 190-159 BC), Roman dramatist. Chremes, in The Self-Tormentor [Heauton Timorumenos], act 1, scene 1.


Führerprinzip:



One leader, one people, signifies one master and millions of slaves… There is no organ of conciliation or mediation interposed between the leader and the people, nothing in fact but the apparatus - in other words, the party - which is the emanation of the leader and the tool of his will to oppress. In this way the first and sole principle of this degraded form of mysticism is born, the Führerprinzip, which restores idolatry and a debased deity to the world of nihilism.