I've found that with any director with a very unique but overtly quirky vision (Anderson, Jarmusch, and now Hartley) I'm at first immensely charmed by them but my enthusiasm wears thin with time as the quirks begin to feel less like quirks and more like cliches of the auteur's own creation; it's somewhat ironic that filmmakers who once felt so original can begin to feel more and more like caricatures as they further emphasize what made them original. The films from them that I take to most are likely to be the ones I see first, which might mean that my ambivalence towards this movie is more my problem than it is Hartley's. But I also still love Trust, so there must be something that connected with me there that's absent here- and I think this kind of auteur often forgets what it is that made their films connect with people and an over-reliance on their established style can become a copout, especially the quirky styles that have a tendency to undercut emotionally resonant moments (there are moments however where a film's quirks can allow it to express something in a purer way than a more grounded film is capable of; Jude's dance scene after he realizes he's in love was wonderful).
Review of Surviving Desire
