Thursday, September 07, 2006

Australian art house puzzle

At the Movies: The Book of Revelation

That Margaret Pomeranz and David Stratton automatically increase any Australian movie's star rating by 1 is a given.

A further warning sign that a movie they review is not for me is when they start calling an art house style movie "challenging" or "brave". David Stratton's comments on the new film "The Book of Revelation" (which I was in no danger of rushing out to see anyway) are like a big warning sign saying "if you not an artiste, you will hate this":

DAVID: When I came out of this film I thought I've never seen a film like this before, a film that tackled these themes, a film that was so provocative, tantalising. And I was left in many ways puzzling, and I'm still in some ways puzzling, over what we were supposed to come away with from the film.

Margaret said:

I would have wished for just a little more grounding in reality in the look of the film, the power of the story comes from our ability to believe totally in Daniel’s journey, not as a dream, although that may be your ultimate interpretation.

What's it about?:

Daniel (Long) is a dancer who is kidnapped by three masked women. They chain him to a warehouse floor and sexually abuse him for roughly two weeks. This is graphically shown in the film and hence it’s R rating here in Australia.

The three women eventually release Daniel but the experience leaves him a changed man.

There would no odds given for my reaction being the same as this viewer's:

Generally, I thought this was convulated drivel.

Run away, people, run away!

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