This is a very strange movie one of the strangest I have ever seen. It has great actors, a plot impossible to understand, murders and death, sexual perversion, able cinematography, philosophical villains and disgusting morals.
The point of the movie is very simple.Evil rules human life and the more evil you are the best chances you have to survive. The most moral character of the movie meets the worst fate, the worst character prevails. It seems the whole movie was made to vindicate the worldview of the Marquis De Sade! All this is rather simple really and it does not need to be explained in literary platitudes. Neither it is something original. What's the point of having a stellar cast and an obviously big budget to reach such a humdrum conclusion?
Obviously some people, the screen-play writer whom I did not know but who seems to be rather famous, have a morbid fascination with the human propensity for evil and perversity. I do not want to create spoilers but if you watch the movie with some attention the kind of fate at least two of the main characters shall meet latter becomes more than obvious, this movie have the subtlety of an hippopotamus.
I mean it simply is as plain as having wolfs making sermons to seep about the futility and brevity of life before they eat them. Does this thing make for great art, subtlety and insight to the human condition as quite a lot of reviewers state or imply?In my opinion no although my view may be in a degree conditioned by the fact that I find the morality of the movie repulsive and therefore I punish the whole movie based on the wrong criteria.
I did not like this movie I had a bad feeling leaving the theatre. On the other hand I liked the actors. They weren't characters they were human allegories for the passions of the soul. Cameron Diaz symbolized the naked will to prevail and sexuality without confines. In Freudian terms the urge for aggression and the sexual urge unhinged by any moral constrains. The prosperity of vice to site one of Sade's novels. Cruz was the Lilly of the valley that was the prey of a cruel and perverse world. The Counsellor was the good man who took a wrong path and was destroyed(although there is no explaining which was his motive for evil-doing despite the continual warnings to do otherwise-the only conclusion is that he did for kicks for its own sake).Two other characters exist played by Bardem and Pitt who are very colorful in terms of character as well as in terms of stylistic choices. They are the ones who warn the hero of the fate that awaits him.
You could say that all this has allusions to Elizabethan tragedies and drama but this is an overstatement. And one must note that the way Mexicans are portrayed confirms all the Wasp stereotypes about them.But one thing is certain, this film will gain a cult following among all those who pride themselves for having understood the true workings of nature and society under the hypocritical facade of the JudeoChristian ethic. Their self- satisfaction will gain an immense boost- as if one had slapped the Pope publicly the moment he went to bless the public in St Peter's Square after his election....
The point of the movie is very simple.Evil rules human life and the more evil you are the best chances you have to survive. The most moral character of the movie meets the worst fate, the worst character prevails. It seems the whole movie was made to vindicate the worldview of the Marquis De Sade! All this is rather simple really and it does not need to be explained in literary platitudes. Neither it is something original. What's the point of having a stellar cast and an obviously big budget to reach such a humdrum conclusion?
Obviously some people, the screen-play writer whom I did not know but who seems to be rather famous, have a morbid fascination with the human propensity for evil and perversity. I do not want to create spoilers but if you watch the movie with some attention the kind of fate at least two of the main characters shall meet latter becomes more than obvious, this movie have the subtlety of an hippopotamus.
I mean it simply is as plain as having wolfs making sermons to seep about the futility and brevity of life before they eat them. Does this thing make for great art, subtlety and insight to the human condition as quite a lot of reviewers state or imply?In my opinion no although my view may be in a degree conditioned by the fact that I find the morality of the movie repulsive and therefore I punish the whole movie based on the wrong criteria.
I did not like this movie I had a bad feeling leaving the theatre. On the other hand I liked the actors. They weren't characters they were human allegories for the passions of the soul. Cameron Diaz symbolized the naked will to prevail and sexuality without confines. In Freudian terms the urge for aggression and the sexual urge unhinged by any moral constrains. The prosperity of vice to site one of Sade's novels. Cruz was the Lilly of the valley that was the prey of a cruel and perverse world. The Counsellor was the good man who took a wrong path and was destroyed(although there is no explaining which was his motive for evil-doing despite the continual warnings to do otherwise-the only conclusion is that he did for kicks for its own sake).Two other characters exist played by Bardem and Pitt who are very colorful in terms of character as well as in terms of stylistic choices. They are the ones who warn the hero of the fate that awaits him.
You could say that all this has allusions to Elizabethan tragedies and drama but this is an overstatement. And one must note that the way Mexicans are portrayed confirms all the Wasp stereotypes about them.But one thing is certain, this film will gain a cult following among all those who pride themselves for having understood the true workings of nature and society under the hypocritical facade of the JudeoChristian ethic. Their self- satisfaction will gain an immense boost- as if one had slapped the Pope publicly the moment he went to bless the public in St Peter's Square after his election....