I guess I'm going to have to give Reygadas A for effort. What we see on screen certainly LOOKS good. The photography is splendid and the human or humanoid figures are memorable in one way or another. It sounds good too. There's no noticeable score but the situational music ranges from rap through military marches to Bach, and the otherwise silent background sometimes is filled with clicking heels, peeps, and ticks.
That's about it for me. The residual impression is a failed attempt at an artistic masterpiece. In the opening scene, before the credits, we see the inexpressive face of an ordinary middle-aged man. The camera, always slowly and deliberately, moves down his overblown torso and we see the back of some blond woman's head covering his groin, her hair sprouting up in ungainly spears and tangles. At a glacial pace the camera sidles sideways and we see (explicitly) that she is fellating the guy, her movements about as unsprightly as the camera's, and her eyes are closed. The camera moves verrrry slooowly in until we see only her closed lids. They pop open, her irises stare wildly at us, and a tear rolls out of one of them and down her cheek.
That's not too bad, but it's an example of the director's technique at just about its peak. A few other scenes are equally shocking but for the most part watching this is like rolling a giant stone up a hill.
There are one or two underlying plots in all this artistry. One has to do with a general's daughter, Ana, working for kicks in a cathouse. Several people have argued that this is the only way male directors can think about women with sexual appetites, which strikes me as a pretty cheap interpretation. Anyway, Marco, the fat guy we see in the opening scene is her chauffeur and for some reason agrees to get it on with him. They make love joylessly. "Marco, calm down," she tells him as he lies there passively, staring at the ceiling. Marco also makes love to his wife, a human butterball, which is like making love to one of the monumental Mayan pyramids at Chitchen Itza. It's easy to make fun of people who are visually imperfect but you have to give these actors credit for being willing to expose their flawed bodies on screen like this. (I can only make these statements because my own physical manifestation is without blemish.) Not to say that the young Ana's figure is unusual. She looks pretty good. But all the sex is made to look about as much fun as riding an exercise bicycle. If it were no more alluring a sport than as presented here the human race would have died out thousands of years ago.
Well, anyway, it fits the overall gloom of the other story, the one about the child that Marco and his wife kidnapped, the child who died while a captive. The climactic scenes bring the problem of guilt and penance to a head but we don't really get to know much about it until half-way through the film, and then only through minimalist conversation.
You know, if you were to play a DVD or a tape of this movie and stop it somewhere at random, you'd probably get an image of two people gazing silently at one another. Failing that, you can expect a tableau of a dozen or so people standing together motionlessly as if they were dolls placed there by a child, staring silently at the camera. There is one spectacular shot in which Ana and Marcos are getting it on and the camera moves verrry slooowly out onto the balcony of the room and then takes us on a slooow tour of the Mexico City neighborhood, looking no better and no worse than any other big-city neighborhood, before completing its 360 degree travelogue and returning to the now-exhausted couple on the bed. It reminded me of the spectacular shot towards the end of Michelangelo Antonioni's "The Passenger." While Jack Nicholson is getting murdered quietly in his room, the camera passes through the bars of the window and takes us on a scenic tour of the street outside before pulling back through the bars and showing us Nicholson's corpse. I got the point of Antonioni's camera movement. The bars in the window were removable so the camera could get outside and replaceable so it could get back in -- a self-conscious display of technique. This whole movie reminds me of that shot.
Still, the visuals are beautiful, the film does have its moments, and a lot of effort clearly went into the production. So they still use storyboards? Because if they do, this was thoroughly storyboarded. If you're in a contemplative and patient mood, and if you don't mind quite a lot of experimental technique, you should find this film an interesting one.
That's about it for me. The residual impression is a failed attempt at an artistic masterpiece. In the opening scene, before the credits, we see the inexpressive face of an ordinary middle-aged man. The camera, always slowly and deliberately, moves down his overblown torso and we see the back of some blond woman's head covering his groin, her hair sprouting up in ungainly spears and tangles. At a glacial pace the camera sidles sideways and we see (explicitly) that she is fellating the guy, her movements about as unsprightly as the camera's, and her eyes are closed. The camera moves verrrry slooowly in until we see only her closed lids. They pop open, her irises stare wildly at us, and a tear rolls out of one of them and down her cheek.
That's not too bad, but it's an example of the director's technique at just about its peak. A few other scenes are equally shocking but for the most part watching this is like rolling a giant stone up a hill.
There are one or two underlying plots in all this artistry. One has to do with a general's daughter, Ana, working for kicks in a cathouse. Several people have argued that this is the only way male directors can think about women with sexual appetites, which strikes me as a pretty cheap interpretation. Anyway, Marco, the fat guy we see in the opening scene is her chauffeur and for some reason agrees to get it on with him. They make love joylessly. "Marco, calm down," she tells him as he lies there passively, staring at the ceiling. Marco also makes love to his wife, a human butterball, which is like making love to one of the monumental Mayan pyramids at Chitchen Itza. It's easy to make fun of people who are visually imperfect but you have to give these actors credit for being willing to expose their flawed bodies on screen like this. (I can only make these statements because my own physical manifestation is without blemish.) Not to say that the young Ana's figure is unusual. She looks pretty good. But all the sex is made to look about as much fun as riding an exercise bicycle. If it were no more alluring a sport than as presented here the human race would have died out thousands of years ago.
Well, anyway, it fits the overall gloom of the other story, the one about the child that Marco and his wife kidnapped, the child who died while a captive. The climactic scenes bring the problem of guilt and penance to a head but we don't really get to know much about it until half-way through the film, and then only through minimalist conversation.
You know, if you were to play a DVD or a tape of this movie and stop it somewhere at random, you'd probably get an image of two people gazing silently at one another. Failing that, you can expect a tableau of a dozen or so people standing together motionlessly as if they were dolls placed there by a child, staring silently at the camera. There is one spectacular shot in which Ana and Marcos are getting it on and the camera moves verrry slooowly out onto the balcony of the room and then takes us on a slooow tour of the Mexico City neighborhood, looking no better and no worse than any other big-city neighborhood, before completing its 360 degree travelogue and returning to the now-exhausted couple on the bed. It reminded me of the spectacular shot towards the end of Michelangelo Antonioni's "The Passenger." While Jack Nicholson is getting murdered quietly in his room, the camera passes through the bars of the window and takes us on a scenic tour of the street outside before pulling back through the bars and showing us Nicholson's corpse. I got the point of Antonioni's camera movement. The bars in the window were removable so the camera could get outside and replaceable so it could get back in -- a self-conscious display of technique. This whole movie reminds me of that shot.
Still, the visuals are beautiful, the film does have its moments, and a lot of effort clearly went into the production. So they still use storyboards? Because if they do, this was thoroughly storyboarded. If you're in a contemplative and patient mood, and if you don't mind quite a lot of experimental technique, you should find this film an interesting one.