Watched two more of your picks,
Sigh.
Empire of the Sun was so. . .Spielbergy. Christian Bale was unbelievable, definitely made it worth the watch, but on the whole, it was just another Spielberg affair where nothing really felt significant and there was very little tension since you knew everything was going to work out literally perfectly, and sure enough, it did. And the only moments of real inspiration were, not surprisingly, the moments of the innocent beauty of childhood (Bale finding the busted plane, his weird relationship with the Japanese kid on the other side of the wire, his "friendship" with Malkovich), while the supposedly "heavy" moments (Bale's breakdown with the doctor, the fate of the Japanese kid) were painfully inept and laughably clunky, perfect examples of Spielberg's limitations as a dramatist.
A Prophet, on the other hand, had literally nothing going for it. It actually reminded me of
The Wire in that it succeeded in doing the impossible: Turning the viewing of a crime drama into the equivalent of watching paint dry. It was so long and so boring, it took forever for anything to happen, and when anything did happen, it was so dull and lifeless. I didn't give a shit about anyone or anything, so even aside from the plodding plot, I didn't even get the small pleasures of hearing sharp dialogue or watching particularly impressive performances or even hearing cool music. Absolutely nothing for me to sink my teeth into, just pure monotony like I was a prisoner going stir crazy in the cell that was this movie. The front of the DVD has some blurb about it being like
The Godfather, and even for as overrated as I think that movie is, that's still a hell of an insult :redface:
he's constantly trying to reconcile demons, which can only mean the ultimate goal is happiness. I think it's at least a little bit problematic that he barely ever scratches the surface, through characters, on what happiness looks or feels like. It's hard to take insight from him in that way. choosing this guy to be the one to get you closer to your plagues seems masochistic. and that's his choice to make.
Happiness is the wrong word. Happiness can be attained even while there's a dark cloud hanging over you. I think it'd be better to say happiness is something that can come in moments but ultimately what's being sought after is peace of mind, and
that is what was impossible for Bergman (and, by extension, his characters) to attain, and a majority of his films, you're absolutely right, have a masochistic edge to them, in keeping with that thing I quoted from Schopenhauer about the final outcome in the most tragic of dramas being "the vanity of all human striving."
So he can have a scene like the strawberries and milk scene in
The Seventh Seal, where the characters experience true happiness, where the knight's solemnity is temporarily broken and he receives the gift of a happy memory to take with him through all of the ups and downs of life, yet the persistent theme of the Sisyphean struggle of humanity to reconcile its place in the silent and mystifying universe is never undercut, it still lurks over the happiness just as death always lurks over life, the ultimate paradoxical theme of
The Seventh Seal and, indeed, all of Bergman's cinema.
Man, I need to watch that dude's movies again. All this talk, it's getting me too jazzed up :icon_chee
