| RATING: | 100% |
| FORMAT: | DVD |
Exceptional crime drama about the futility of internecine gang-war violence. At root, the gang culture shown here is a death-worshiping one in which loyalty to an idea of masculinity is more important than masculinity itself or actual masculinity. The characters are appropriately blank and the relationships less than wholesome or satisfying for any of the participants; hence, the need for increasing levels of violence in the vain hope that personal growth can be discovered thereby.
Amid all the carnage there is enough time for subtle and ironic humor - as if the Fates can laugh in between the bloodletting and let us in on what borderline personalities feel they need to do to unwind. Eschewing the car chases and fast editing of US gangster movies, the style is slower and the gore more front and center in this modern stab at a more contemporary Godfather. This time without glamorizing its subject-matter. It does this by visually abstracting its theme of people only possessing a sense of honor through sacrifice.
An existential thriller to beat the best of Jean-Pierre Melville and Walter Hill, this is matter-of-fact drama with extensive use of tableaux vivants to emphasize the sense of a still life lived in aspic.
No comments:
Post a Comment