Arthur wants loot: he’s deep in debt to a fence. But he also wants to find Beniamina, his lost love, who might be dead or simply lying low. So he’s scouring the small towns and the big house on the hill. He’s searching the graves in the woods and the tombs near the beach. It’s as though his dowsing rod is a thread that somehow connects his hand to hers. “Yes,” Rohrwacher says. “Like the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice." - Xan Brooks in The Guardian.
I give it a 3/5, some things were smart and cool, but at the same time it can't quite stitch it together.
The opening was very slow, but when you finally get in to it is an interesting movie about a man diggin' up graves, robbing the loot and looking for his lost girlfriend. It is unclear if she is just gone, or dead, but it seems most likely that she died on the job robbing graves alongside the main protagonist.
Positives:
-Good vibes and style, really nails "old italy"
-Fun jokes in Italian, that don't really translate (sorry english boys)
-The song on train is probably the strongest scene in the movie and (imho) should have been the ending.
- The tomb scene by the powerplant
Negatives:
-Too slow with lots of wasted time
-Didn't really believe the love between Italia & Arthur, didn't really develop i a natural or logical way, and it did seems like Arthur actually cared for her.
-Ending drags on (like Return of the King).
-Beniamina story underdeveloped.
-Biggest sin. Towards the end all the characters kind of break down and do illogical things that make you not care. Like Italia leaves Arthur because he is robbing graves, but at the same time is ready to take him back at the drop of a hat out of nowhere.
Arthur gets a vision of the after life that makes him stop robbing graves, but then meets his girlfriend and then really has to leave in the middle of the night to go out robbing graves again. He throws away the most valuable thing he found, because of qualms. But then goes right back to robbing for no reason.
In my mind the main achievement of Alice Rohrwacher is making the plot uncriticizable by making the plot very allegorical/eclectic and mixing the reality of the movie. Any criticism of the plot can be brushed off as "you didn't understand it". The reviews go crazy about praising it as to not reveal that (maybe) they didn't understand everything, and are to scared of showing it by trying to point out errors. The was a lot of genuine wasted opportunity with this picture.
I perhaps could have tolerated this film if it had committed to either full tilt surrealism or, you know, told a coherent and engaging story. Instead, we have a bizarre hodgepodge - is it a poetical allegory? Is it trying to tell me something about the real world of economics, black markets, corruption? These things were merely vaguely alluded to, there was no...point. It's the kind of film in which spoilers are impossible because nothing meaningful really happens. I was left only with the vague impression that the creator of this mess is bourgeois and self-indulgent - the film itself doesn't provide enough content for analysis. Maybe I missed something, but the positive reviews read as vapid as the film.
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outdoorcats
It's pure cinema.monty
Arthur wants loot: he’s deep in debt to a fence. But he also wants to find Beniamina, his lost love, who might be dead or simply lying low. So he’s scouring the small towns and the big house on the hill. He’s searching the graves in the woods and the tombs near the beach. It’s as though his dowsing rod is a thread that somehow connects his hand to hers. “Yes,” Rohrwacher says. “Like the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice." - Xan Brooks in The Guardian.Phyrexian
I agree with you snargrots: you missed something. :-)SweetVanillaFreshness
I give it a 3/5, some things were smart and cool, but at the same time it can't quite stitch it together.Positives:
-Good vibes and style, really nails "old italy"
-Fun jokes in Italian, that don't really translate (sorry english boys)
-The song on train is probably the strongest scene in the movie and (imho) should have been the ending.
- The tomb scene by the powerplant
Negatives:
-Too slow with lots of wasted time
-Didn't really believe the love between Italia & Arthur, didn't really develop i a natural or logical way, and it did seems like Arthur actually cared for her.
-Ending drags on (like Return of the King).
-Beniamina story underdeveloped.
-Biggest sin. Towards the end all the characters kind of break down and do illogical things that make you not care. Like Italia leaves Arthur because he is robbing graves, but at the same time is ready to take him back at the drop of a hat out of nowhere.
Arthur gets a vision of the after life that makes him stop robbing graves, but then meets his girlfriend and then really has to leave in the middle of the night to go out robbing graves again. He throws away the most valuable thing he found, because of qualms. But then goes right back to robbing for no reason.
In my mind the main achievement of Alice Rohrwacher is making the plot uncriticizable by making the plot very allegorical/eclectic and mixing the reality of the movie. Any criticism of the plot can be brushed off as "you didn't understand it". The reviews go crazy about praising it as to not reveal that (maybe) they didn't understand everything, and are to scared of showing it by trying to point out errors. The was a lot of genuine wasted opportunity with this picture.
snargrots
I perhaps could have tolerated this film if it had committed to either full tilt surrealism or, you know, told a coherent and engaging story. Instead, we have a bizarre hodgepodge - is it a poetical allegory? Is it trying to tell me something about the real world of economics, black markets, corruption? These things were merely vaguely alluded to, there was no...point. It's the kind of film in which spoilers are impossible because nothing meaningful really happens. I was left only with the vague impression that the creator of this mess is bourgeois and self-indulgent - the film itself doesn't provide enough content for analysis. Maybe I missed something, but the positive reviews read as vapid as the film.nymets138
English subtitles are on KG