The Moustache (2005)
6/10
Compelling but Unsatisfying
8 December 2006
I saw the movie at the Melwood Screening room in Pittsburgh, PA so indeed the film made it the USA.

The movie held my interest throughout but in the end it was unsatisfying because it continued to create loose ends throughout without ever weaving them back together. You could argue that that was intentional, that the viewer was supposed to draw their own conclusions. But, given that real life so often presents unknowable people and events, a film is an opportunity to see things through. mho.

A few things I wondered about: At the end of the movie, his wife mysteriously appears in his south Asian hotel and acts as if nothing is strange about that. As if they had been there together the while time. They make love and then he wakes. It's not clear if she was still there and he's alone. But, just prior to bed, she had suggested he shave his mustache and he does. And she acknowledges him shaving it. That acknowledgment seemed satisfying to him.

Some people, mostly strangers seemed to recognize from photos that he had had a mustache. But all the closest friends denied him ever having had one. Seems too much to believe that he had had one and so he seems crazy. But, they might be in collusion. The film doesn't providing any motif for that collusion.
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