Lowered expectations can definitely assist in the enjoyment of a film. If I’d gone into this expecting Lost In Translation, or anything approaching it, I’d have been furious. As it was, I was expecting nothing, and so found myself pleasantly surprised. The film is impossibly beautiful, and not just in terms of scenery and actors. The framing and photography are wonderfully precise, lending the slightly thin script a lot more pathos than it might otherwise deserve. The scenes at Antoinette’s summer retreat are particularly lovely.
But it’s a frustratingly naïve portrait, perhaps intentionally so. The music choices range from the brilliant to the bizarre, and would have seemed far more rebellious if A Knight’s Tale hadn’t got there first. The film’s main problem is that it can’t really engender a massive amount of sympathy for its’ pitiful, pampered leads. Still, Rip Torn as the King of France… genius.
by Tom Huddleston | Source: DVD
02 Jul 2007 12:13 PM | Submit Comment
