3 posts tagged “sci-fi”
So, I saw The Fountain a couple days ago, and I honestly can't decide whether or not I liked it.
I think part of this lies in me feeling a little stupid because I'm not so sure I understand what the movie was trying to tell me. I'm not the type to hate on a movie I don't understand - I actually really like difficult movies because they make me think - so I don't know why this particular movie is inspiring a big "meh" feeling in me.
In a way, The Fountain is a lot like 2001: A Space Odyssey, in that the story is laid out in the vaguest way possible and it's up to you to put it together. 2001 is about, well, quite a few things, but the main storyline is about the evolution of man. So kind of using that as a framework, I'm figuring The Fountain's about coming to terms with death. At least I think so. If it's not, please school my tiny plebeian mind.
And that's all lovely and everything, except it was executed in a really bizarre way. The movie was (I think) billed as a sci-fi film, full of time travel and epic love or some shit, but what I got out of it was the whole 1500/2000/2500 AD business was a metaphor, and that the movie actually only happened in the year 2000. So that'd make this a drama. Whatever.
Again, I might just be an idiot. Who knows.
What makes me wobble on my rating and not want to give this a straight thumbs down is the acting. It was good. Really good. Like, I was close to tears for a few scenes because Jackman and Weisz (mostly Jackman though) sold it so well. I am a solid non-crier, so this is kind of an amazing feat. I can also appreciate the artistry and skill involved in making the film, so it also gets brownie points from me for that.
Still, the most I can muster is staggering indifference.
Meh.
I have babbled on and on in here about being a fangirl of dystopia. You all know of my girlboner for it. And admittedly, that was my main interest in the film going into it. Children of Men is so much more than just a really depressing story or exercise in depression though - it's ultimately the visual world that Cuarón created that makes this such a brilliant and affecting movie.
My brother and I were recently talking about ARGs (specifically Year Zero) and how engrossing they can be. We mainly discussed how the good ones succeed because of how they are presented. The best ARGs are supposed to blur the line of reality and make you wonder - if only momentarily - if what you're viewing is real or part of a story. A really good ARG is the best way I can describe Children of Men. Even though it's a movie and you can't participate in its story (outside of the passive way that you watch a movie), I have never seen something obscure the line of reality and fiction so well before.
Usually in movies set in the future, be they dystopian or not, you tend to see a Jetsons-like (Jetsonian?) world - flying cars, jet packs, laser guns...you know what I'm talking about. It's so artificial that you can never fully get lost in it. In Children of Men, Cuarón's 2027 looks like 2007, except a lot more worse for the wear. The people in this world still get to their jobs in busses and cars, they still get their morning coffee from a ridiculously overpriced coffee shop; but in this world, these people are also dealing with the crushing reality that humans are a species going extinct while also trying to cling to life in a civilization spiraling into nihilism. It's heavy stuff. You mix in a matter-of-fact, almost flippant view of violence and a cinematography style more like that of a war correspondent than a major motion picture, and you've got yourself an experience that's really fucking hard to separate yourself from for the duration. Intense is almost putting it mildly.
Strangely enough, there's actually a fair bit of humor, and hell, hope, to be had to balance the soul-crushing despair. At its heart the story is one of hope. And amazingly, despite this not being a happy movie (or even an enjoyable one - I mean, it was excellent but you don't come away from it thinking you had a fun time), it definitely succeeds in being ultimately hopeful. I can't say that I've seen anything quite like it.
Um. Not so much.
After seeing some more production stills I started reading up on the making of the fim. I discovered that it was made with a technique called interpolated rotoscoping, and that Richard Linklater (the director) was the first to use this technique for an entire feature film - A Scanner Darkly was the second film of his to use it (Waking Life was the first). I rented Waking Life last year because I wanted to see more of this animation technique as soon as possible, and only I bring this up because I think A Scanner Darkly suffers from the same problem as Waking Life: I feel like Linklater is trying really hard to sell me on some kind of Deep Philosophical Message by putting it in a visually interesting package. Admittedly, that's mostly the point of Waking Life, but that feeling definitely carried over into this film to the point where I couldn't really figure out what the hell the plot was until the movie was nearly over. I suppose that could have been by design, but I couldn't shake the feeling of "OH MY GOD GUYS, ISN'T THIS DEEP?!" being telegraphed to me at all times throughout the length of the movie. The hamfisted-ness left a really bad taste in my mouth and ruined me on the whole thing.
I was right that it was "at least cool to look at," but I was hoping for more than just style. Kind of like Sin City. It's just disappointing because the story itself is rather interesting if you like dystopian fiction and science fiction - two genres I'm a ho for. So it was worth my time in that it got me interested in reading the novel. I just wish there was more plot and less faux-enlightenment to be had, you know? It's rent-worthy if you want something interesting too look at (and really, it is stunning artistically) or if you're a fan of Robert Downey Jr. or Keanu Reeves and are a completist. If not? Pass.
