This little movie won AFI awards back in the day, yet I'd never heard of it, its become quite obscure. I found a VHS copy at my local good will and was pleased to find that it was not in any way terrible. Russell Crowe stands out, supremely likable; Hugo Weaving is kind of odd, a bit more creepy than perhaps he needed to be. Maybe a bit too much of the old Agent Smith, and not enough of the Priscilla Queen of the Desert. It is not, however, a great slice of life, and that comes down to the plot: allow me...
Hugo Weaving plays a blind man with a penchant for taking photos and having people describe them to him. Now, he uses the photos as "proof" that what he sensed in the room was really there. Yet, he can't see the photos, so he's relying on the accuracy of people's descriptions of them. The concept is a bit fiddly. It reminds me a lot of Memento, I believe that character used polaroids as mementos, because he had a short-term memory problem. Its kind of strange here, because the photos I guess are some kind of weird truth contract for this guy. My issue is that there is never any way for Hugo Weaving's character to verify what is in the photos, so what is the point of them?
This kind of far-fetched concept reminds me of a lot of the old arty novels I used to read about lonely people who find some strange way to connect with one special friend, in this case a lovable rascal played by Russell Crowe. The production style of the film has aged fairly well, and it contains some well written scenes, but I just think the basic concept is pretty flawed and silly. I guess if it was released with a descriptive audio track and rang true for blind audiences I'd be happy to admit I was wrong, but it rang fairly false to me, in a logical sense. As mentioned, I also found Hugo Weaving to be unnecessarily creepy.
A strange one. I appreciated that it wasn't terrible, but found such a profound problem with its scenario. I don't know, 5/10?
Hugo Weaving plays a blind man with a penchant for taking photos and having people describe them to him. Now, he uses the photos as "proof" that what he sensed in the room was really there. Yet, he can't see the photos, so he's relying on the accuracy of people's descriptions of them. The concept is a bit fiddly. It reminds me a lot of Memento, I believe that character used polaroids as mementos, because he had a short-term memory problem. Its kind of strange here, because the photos I guess are some kind of weird truth contract for this guy. My issue is that there is never any way for Hugo Weaving's character to verify what is in the photos, so what is the point of them?
This kind of far-fetched concept reminds me of a lot of the old arty novels I used to read about lonely people who find some strange way to connect with one special friend, in this case a lovable rascal played by Russell Crowe. The production style of the film has aged fairly well, and it contains some well written scenes, but I just think the basic concept is pretty flawed and silly. I guess if it was released with a descriptive audio track and rang true for blind audiences I'd be happy to admit I was wrong, but it rang fairly false to me, in a logical sense. As mentioned, I also found Hugo Weaving to be unnecessarily creepy.
A strange one. I appreciated that it wasn't terrible, but found such a profound problem with its scenario. I don't know, 5/10?