As aimless-46's "big wow" review states, the set is fantastic. As is the overall look of the film. The only difference is I actually liked the movie, primarily because it plays as an incredible piece of imagination rather than as any kind of shocking, deep philosophical statement.
The film works best as "this is our world" rather than "forbidden love." The sense of isolation, of familial insularity is all-pervasive, probably due to Derek being the only adult character of any consequence. Both mother and father are so faintly delineated that there's no real sense of loss when they both die. Scenes where the children reflect back on them have no real power since the parents were hardly there to begin with. In fact, the film works better if you start it around 11 mins. This creates the feeling that the father has been dead for quite some time rather than very recently. The characters lack of emotional reaction to his being gone makes more sense then. Likewise the mother's illness becomes something that has been going on for a significant length of time, so that when she too dies, it doesn't change much--the children have already adjusted to living w/o her.
I could go on in a similar vein as there's so much which doesn't really make a lot of sense when looked at too closely. What makes it work is the kind of otherworldly shimmer Birkin gives the story. It frees the viewer up from having to parse it for cues to deeper meaning in the real world, so that we can get a feeling of what it's like to live in a very obsessive, very small world where your older sister is a disturbing little tease and your brother is a 15yr old version of Jim Morrison.
Aimless-46's review touches on Birkin's artsy pretentiousness, and yeah, it's definitely there. Fortunately, Birkin is so inept when it comes to symbology that it works in the film's favor. The flashbacks to the beach scenes were probably meant to be something very specific, but they're presented in such an uncoordinated manner (and at such random points in the narrative) as to be utterly mysterious, heightening the sense of disconnection from reality. Then there's the voice-overs (in a Saturday morning cartoon announcer's voice) of the cheesy space novel Jack is reading, which should be really weak attempts at ironic commentary, except for the quoted passages seem to have nothing to do with the Jack/Julie storyline. Or, in fact, anything in the movie at all. And, of course, there's the "Naked Jack in the Rain" scene, possibly intended as ...well, I have no idea. Something metaphysical, I suppose, although the way it's shot it seems like little more than cooling off in the rain on a hot sweaty night.
Birkin (following Macgowan's lead in the book?) appears to be trying to say something profound about gender, but it's laughable, which gives the movie some needed levity at key moments. By striving (one imagines) to depict the universal, Birkin ends up adding character depth. Julie dressing the youngest boy Tom up as a girl comes off not as a statement about gender identity, but rather as a hint that Julie has an actual sense of humor. Jacks's discovery of Tom, wearing a ridiculous wig and playing at husband and wife with his friend William, underlines Jack's essential cluelessness. Even after Tom informs him that they're playing at being Jack and Julie, Jack doesn't seem to get it. Or care.
The only thing keeping me back from handing out a 10 for this one is the intrusive subplot of Derek. Nevermind that there's no particular explanation for why a successful 33yr old is perving around trying to score with a barely legal teenager, or how in hell he figures out that a locker down in the basement of a very large house contains the cement-entombed body of said teenager's recently departed mother. The guy is just annoying, popping up at all the wrong moments. His "he's your brother!" scene is aggravating. It's like "yeah, we know, OK? That's kind of the point of the movie." Derek is unwanted voice of sanity in a movie that really doesn't need one.
The whole incest angle would be icky if it were presented in anything like a realistic context. Since it's played out in a world so completely imaginary that we can't even tell what decade it is, it succeeds in being erotic--a glimpse into a world so private and self-contained that it succeeds in being its own self-generated heat source.
The film works best as "this is our world" rather than "forbidden love." The sense of isolation, of familial insularity is all-pervasive, probably due to Derek being the only adult character of any consequence. Both mother and father are so faintly delineated that there's no real sense of loss when they both die. Scenes where the children reflect back on them have no real power since the parents were hardly there to begin with. In fact, the film works better if you start it around 11 mins. This creates the feeling that the father has been dead for quite some time rather than very recently. The characters lack of emotional reaction to his being gone makes more sense then. Likewise the mother's illness becomes something that has been going on for a significant length of time, so that when she too dies, it doesn't change much--the children have already adjusted to living w/o her.
I could go on in a similar vein as there's so much which doesn't really make a lot of sense when looked at too closely. What makes it work is the kind of otherworldly shimmer Birkin gives the story. It frees the viewer up from having to parse it for cues to deeper meaning in the real world, so that we can get a feeling of what it's like to live in a very obsessive, very small world where your older sister is a disturbing little tease and your brother is a 15yr old version of Jim Morrison.
Aimless-46's review touches on Birkin's artsy pretentiousness, and yeah, it's definitely there. Fortunately, Birkin is so inept when it comes to symbology that it works in the film's favor. The flashbacks to the beach scenes were probably meant to be something very specific, but they're presented in such an uncoordinated manner (and at such random points in the narrative) as to be utterly mysterious, heightening the sense of disconnection from reality. Then there's the voice-overs (in a Saturday morning cartoon announcer's voice) of the cheesy space novel Jack is reading, which should be really weak attempts at ironic commentary, except for the quoted passages seem to have nothing to do with the Jack/Julie storyline. Or, in fact, anything in the movie at all. And, of course, there's the "Naked Jack in the Rain" scene, possibly intended as ...well, I have no idea. Something metaphysical, I suppose, although the way it's shot it seems like little more than cooling off in the rain on a hot sweaty night.
Birkin (following Macgowan's lead in the book?) appears to be trying to say something profound about gender, but it's laughable, which gives the movie some needed levity at key moments. By striving (one imagines) to depict the universal, Birkin ends up adding character depth. Julie dressing the youngest boy Tom up as a girl comes off not as a statement about gender identity, but rather as a hint that Julie has an actual sense of humor. Jacks's discovery of Tom, wearing a ridiculous wig and playing at husband and wife with his friend William, underlines Jack's essential cluelessness. Even after Tom informs him that they're playing at being Jack and Julie, Jack doesn't seem to get it. Or care.
The only thing keeping me back from handing out a 10 for this one is the intrusive subplot of Derek. Nevermind that there's no particular explanation for why a successful 33yr old is perving around trying to score with a barely legal teenager, or how in hell he figures out that a locker down in the basement of a very large house contains the cement-entombed body of said teenager's recently departed mother. The guy is just annoying, popping up at all the wrong moments. His "he's your brother!" scene is aggravating. It's like "yeah, we know, OK? That's kind of the point of the movie." Derek is unwanted voice of sanity in a movie that really doesn't need one.
The whole incest angle would be icky if it were presented in anything like a realistic context. Since it's played out in a world so completely imaginary that we can't even tell what decade it is, it succeeds in being erotic--a glimpse into a world so private and self-contained that it succeeds in being its own self-generated heat source.