Uncle Boonmee and Valhalla Rising

How do critics tackle a film that essentially speaks about what cannot be spoken, cannot be translated into words? That Uncle Boonmee either provokes wonderment or boredom is curious indeed. A few words on the inevitable old argument that there are those who are sensitive, those capable of sustained interest, those who’s conception of reality is far from the mere objects, those whose sense of metaphysical blah blah blah. Ok. Enough. That doesn’t really address it, I think. Boonmee barely has a story but it has the story that is the real story. It addresses the very arbitrary barrier between the banal and the unusual; and it does so with an economy of text and an excess of imagination.

On another tack, Uncle Boonmee is also an exercise in style and content working hand in glove. Which brings me to another film others have lavishly spread the appellation boring: Valhalla Rising. This is a surely a film made to alienate almost everyone. It’s essentially a Herzog, a Don Quixote sent to burn in hell by Nietzsche; and it’s most alienating aspect is that it is filmed like a Ridley Scott car commercial. The type of public that will like these horrible digital effects are the exact opposite of those that would go see a rather challenging non-mainstream film; the type of public that is flocking the Herzog and Kiarostami would never be caught dead advocating any film with this kind of over-burnished post processing overkill.

But that’s a real reason to care; a real reason to tip the hat! Here is a real auteur. Someone who understands the inherent aesthetic grammar of an art house film and still sticks to his tacky roots. Were the world be more filled with sympathy for these eruptions of madness, we wouldn’t have to suffer through the moribund discussions surrounding Hollywood faux geniuses (yes, Christopher Nolan. You do make me want to vomit).

@1 year ago
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