Make no mistake about it: Shane Carruth makes Christopher Nolan look like Jerry Bruckheimer. If you're not the type who relished figuring out what was going on in MEMENTO (and in its untold backstory), if you haven't spent countless pleasant hours debating INCEPTION, do yourself a favor and skip this movie. As you can tell from the other reviews here, this will just make you mad. If, OTOH, you're someone (like me) who felt let down by LOOPER because it didn't live up to its billing as mind-scrambling and was in fact too easy to get, then this may be just your thing.
Key take-home points:
-- For fans of this sort of storytelling, there's plenty of stuff that's reasonably easy to get, and hence the basic storyline is not hard to follow.
-- OTOH, there are bits that are clearly important and that just as clearly will take three or four viewings (and probably liberal use of pause and rewind) to get. That's Carruth's narrative aesthetic: rather than give you one big "OMG I think I understand this" experience, like in VERTIGO, or two, like the first and second times you see THE PRESTIGE, he wants those bombs of comprehension to explode in your skull gradually, over many viewings.
-- At all points in time I felt that every shot was important, every shot contained information. It never felt like art for art's sake. That of course is partly my trust of Carruth, but I also think I got that feeling because *it's true.* This isn't LOST, folks. This is all designed to eventually cohere completely, leaving holes only where Carruth intends, and leaving the viewer knowing quite a bit and knowing precisely what is unknowable.
-- It's exquisite. Carruth has a directorial and editing (and composing) style that I find transfixing (YMMV, of course). Unlike PRIMER, it's at times beautiful and emotionally resonant. My friend was reduced to tears. It has thematic weight already and I know it will acquire more as the story coheres with repeat viewings.
-- Speaking of which, even though I'll be watching the Blu-Ray on May 7 on a great home theater, my friend and I will see this again at the theater next weekend. That's how blown away we were.
Key take-home points:
-- For fans of this sort of storytelling, there's plenty of stuff that's reasonably easy to get, and hence the basic storyline is not hard to follow.
-- OTOH, there are bits that are clearly important and that just as clearly will take three or four viewings (and probably liberal use of pause and rewind) to get. That's Carruth's narrative aesthetic: rather than give you one big "OMG I think I understand this" experience, like in VERTIGO, or two, like the first and second times you see THE PRESTIGE, he wants those bombs of comprehension to explode in your skull gradually, over many viewings.
-- At all points in time I felt that every shot was important, every shot contained information. It never felt like art for art's sake. That of course is partly my trust of Carruth, but I also think I got that feeling because *it's true.* This isn't LOST, folks. This is all designed to eventually cohere completely, leaving holes only where Carruth intends, and leaving the viewer knowing quite a bit and knowing precisely what is unknowable.
-- It's exquisite. Carruth has a directorial and editing (and composing) style that I find transfixing (YMMV, of course). Unlike PRIMER, it's at times beautiful and emotionally resonant. My friend was reduced to tears. It has thematic weight already and I know it will acquire more as the story coheres with repeat viewings.
-- Speaking of which, even though I'll be watching the Blu-Ray on May 7 on a great home theater, my friend and I will see this again at the theater next weekend. That's how blown away we were.