Pure. Thick and heavy. It's like going through a gallery of paintings where every piece is a timeless treasure. It's as pure a movie as can be found. It's got its own style, it makes its own rules. There is no dialogue, no sound of human voice other than when the family goes to town. And just when you feel like you can't take anymore of this life, the movie slaps you in your face and you simply understand: this isn't make-believe, it's real life, and if you are busy being bored, you're simply wasting precious time when there's work to be done. The work for us is to enjoy all the beautiful angles, the daring framing which somehow often cuts off part of the image but by virtue of that cutting-off keeps the realness perfectly intact. The editing alone is a masterpiece, cutting just as the characters and setting reach a sublime visual harmony, and returning with a new set up full of many little details fluttering and seeking balance all over again. This movie defines what visual story-telling is and forever should be, because it almost never gets bogged down in drama, it ebbs and flows in synch with the nature around it. Plus, the talent of the actors is beyond belief, most definitely owing much to the direction.
The problem comes in the last quarter of the movie's duration. After teaching us not to be sentimental, the movie then takes us through what would be a tragedy for us in most other movies, but here we don't exactly know how to feel. The movie up to this point taught us to detach from emotion, so we kind of just want to get back to work and we don't see the sense in wallowing in misery. And so when one of the characters displays a desire to wallow in misery, we don't have any connection. That is the downside to not getting to know any of the characters' individuality. We have never heard their voices, never understood their dreams or frustrations. Because of this, the movie's miraculous shots, though technically good, become devoid of cinematic beauty because their context is muddled. The audience slips out of the spell that for more than hour seemed impossible to break. A+ for Ambition though.
The problem comes in the last quarter of the movie's duration. After teaching us not to be sentimental, the movie then takes us through what would be a tragedy for us in most other movies, but here we don't exactly know how to feel. The movie up to this point taught us to detach from emotion, so we kind of just want to get back to work and we don't see the sense in wallowing in misery. And so when one of the characters displays a desire to wallow in misery, we don't have any connection. That is the downside to not getting to know any of the characters' individuality. We have never heard their voices, never understood their dreams or frustrations. Because of this, the movie's miraculous shots, though technically good, become devoid of cinematic beauty because their context is muddled. The audience slips out of the spell that for more than hour seemed impossible to break. A+ for Ambition though.