I like movies that veer between fantasy , dreams and reality and often blur the lines in between. Prior to this movie, I had just watched the excellent indie film Living In Oblivion which very craftily executed the aforementioned shtick and so I was hungry for recommendations.
This movie somewhat popped up in some of the websites offering similar films and thought I would give it a try. First off, I will lay down the main hook of the film: it's excellent cinematography. Excellent lighting, excellent panoramic shots of landscapes all serving to immerse the viewer in the dream like environment. The background music( performed by then still relatively obscure Hans Zimmer) really helped accentuate that ethereal quality. There was really a lot of inspiration that I felt was taken from the filming style of the great Andreii Tarkovsky. So if you like his films' look or in general you just want to see some good images while not caring too much of the plot, I would possibly recommend this.
But that's where all the positive features end. This film has literally nothing to offer beyond the good cinematography. The story could have been interesting but just turned out to be flat. I felt I could draw comparisons to Pan's Labyrinth, which was also about a girl going through different dream like scenarios, but the latter had an effective story to tell with a lot of visual subliminal imagery. There's none of that here, There's no tension, no proper character development, none to keep me emotionally invested in a film that's supposed to be about dreams. I really couldn't bother to feel empathy for the main girl character as I had felt in Pan's Labyrinth. She really had nothing to be saddened or stressed about: no philandering selfish mother or abusive father or bullying peers (plot points that usually help to make you feel sorry for the character). Everything just turns right for her. And god, the child actor for the lead role was just so bad and lifeless. She absolutely had no charisma or any form of onscreen presence.
Overall, it's sort of sad that they got to hire such an excellent cinematographer for such a shallow film
This movie somewhat popped up in some of the websites offering similar films and thought I would give it a try. First off, I will lay down the main hook of the film: it's excellent cinematography. Excellent lighting, excellent panoramic shots of landscapes all serving to immerse the viewer in the dream like environment. The background music( performed by then still relatively obscure Hans Zimmer) really helped accentuate that ethereal quality. There was really a lot of inspiration that I felt was taken from the filming style of the great Andreii Tarkovsky. So if you like his films' look or in general you just want to see some good images while not caring too much of the plot, I would possibly recommend this.
But that's where all the positive features end. This film has literally nothing to offer beyond the good cinematography. The story could have been interesting but just turned out to be flat. I felt I could draw comparisons to Pan's Labyrinth, which was also about a girl going through different dream like scenarios, but the latter had an effective story to tell with a lot of visual subliminal imagery. There's none of that here, There's no tension, no proper character development, none to keep me emotionally invested in a film that's supposed to be about dreams. I really couldn't bother to feel empathy for the main girl character as I had felt in Pan's Labyrinth. She really had nothing to be saddened or stressed about: no philandering selfish mother or abusive father or bullying peers (plot points that usually help to make you feel sorry for the character). Everything just turns right for her. And god, the child actor for the lead role was just so bad and lifeless. She absolutely had no charisma or any form of onscreen presence.
Overall, it's sort of sad that they got to hire such an excellent cinematographer for such a shallow film