Hooray for Female Directors Week continues here at Cinephilia out of sheer coincidence and no kind of ulterior motive.
Whoa. First of all, really good reason to see this movie... the lead performance by Luisa Williams. Apparently Williams was a nanny who showed up at an open casting call to portray a female suicide bomber on a mission to blow up Times Square. Williams is a face that Truffaut would stab his mom to shoot. All cheekbones and deep-set wide-apart eyes. The film as a whole is nail-bitingly good and then unfortunately unravels in the last 20 minutes. It's really unfortunate.
Everyone sit down. We need to take a point of view when we start a movie. We cannot just glide by on visual potency or great sound design until we hit the wall of "WHY ARE PEOPLE WATCHING THIS". It's incredibly frustrating with a film as potentially great and groundbreaking as this one. It's a film that immediately commands your attention and has a mysterious air without meandering. It's also a very rare combination of sadistic and viewer-friendly like Fincher's or Haneke's work. It's not jumbled or uneven either. It's actually pitch-perfect for a good chunk of its run time.
Then it just plateaus. Loktev struggles to wrap it up and to sustain the tension that had seemed so effortless only moments before. Argh! It would be one thing if she were dealing with a story that were impossible to conclude. But my best friend* Carmen pointed out an ending that would have been expressive and satisfying as well as horrific. I won't tell you what that was as the film is worth checking out but, needless to say, if you're out of the box as fast and as strong as Loktev in this film then you best have the stamina to finish.
Bottom Line: See it if it's playing near you. I was so close to feeling like I was watching something important and then it just depressed me when she lost control of it. Still, see it.
*when I'm not throwing up on her or accusing her of sleeping with my loser boyfriend
4 comments:
I disagree about the lead performance. While her face is a cinematographer's dream, I thought she was pretty stiff. I don't want to be able to see what somebody is thinking but I do want to feel like they are thinking about something.
The real kudos should go to the director. By relying on that face so much and creating literally nothing else to gravitate towards, she's created the illusion of a captivating performance from little to nothing
I felt like stiff was a choice and i liked that choice. I felt it was forced when she had to sit down and basically sob her way into an ending. I can't give the director kudos for that.
I just saw this movie today, and I have to say that I really enjoyed her performance (and the movie as a whole). Her stiffness, to me at least, seemed within character.
By the way, was I the only one who found the bit where she was trying on clothes in front of the three guys unintentionally funny? The three masked men seemed so bored.
Me again...I hit publish instead of preview. I wanted to discuss the ending a bit.
I watched the movie on Comcast InDemand and when the credits rolled, I actually rewound it as I assumed that I had missed something. My first impression of the ending was similar to the review's...."ok, that was disappointing".
Since, though the ending has stuck with me.
***SPOILERS FOR THE ENDING ***
So they pan around the where she is sitting, from what appears to be her point of view for a bit, and then the credits abruptly roll. From earlier in the movie, one of the masked men tells her that it will be over so fast, she won't have time to feel or react to it. With the abrupt roll to credits, it made me think that she had, in fact, set off the bomb.
*** End Spoilers ***
Did anyone else read it that way, or am I just being dense?
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