"Youth is Wasted on the Youth". At a point beyond the barrier of the 40's , we all know that to be true, but the true unfairness of this fact of life is that the opposite is often also true. I for one haven't reached that other age bracket yet, but after having watched "Tetro" -and with the unfortunate reminiscence of Antonioni's "Beyond The Clouds" or on a much lesser level, Stanley Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut" still fresh on my mind-, I'm starting to wonder if the weight of the years and decades of very intense reflection doesn't have very nefarious consequences indeed on a talented person's ego. "Tetro" sinks under so much self-importance, as if it couldn't bear the load of wisdom that Coppola wants us to believe he has acquired over the years. Don't get me wrong, we all know Coppola will forever be the outrageously brilliant director of some of the most purely cinematic experiences since the birth of cinema; the problem is, it seems like Coppola's artistic development has been stumped -the impression he gives is that of the snake charmer that has charmed himself. The very infantile notion of "genius" and the need to be recognized as such are at the heart of this very artificial, anachronistically romantic film. I could go on ranting about the incredibly superficial vision of Buenos Aires, which drops us at Café Gran Tortoni, La Boca and Radio La Colifata as if on a sightseeing tour bus - I was surprised there was no scene of a couple dancing tango-.
Reviews
2 Reviews
Little Children
(2006)
Simply excruciating for lack of a better, inoffensive word
11 July 2007
Warning: Spoilers
I couldn't possibly add anything to what "missionguy" hasn't already so succinctly exposed in his comment. I've just watched this film a few days ago and simply could not believe the level of overall inanity and that of the director in particular. I was going to spare the author of the novel but now that I've looked him up and found out that Tom Perrotta himself has adapted his novel (after all we're talking about the writer of the hilarious "Election" here), he's going to have to be thrown into the pot too. Not since "Plan 9 From Outer Space" and more recently "Fur: etc..." was there such atrocious use of the omniscient (and unforgivably redundant) narrator. At least in Ed Wood's film it made me laugh heartily and in the Nicole Kidman's unfortunate fantasy on Diane Arbus I got to chuckle here and there; here I couldn't undo a frightening rictus (witnessed by my boyfriend) throughout the film. "Surely this is a comedy", I thought to myself, "let's wait for the green light". Correct me if I'm wrong here, but the green light never came and I very quickly had to come to the conclusion that the film was meant to be taken seriously, well-deep seriously. Let's be clear here: for something to be deep, there must be depth involved.
There is especially a point that is a clear sign to me how poor the thought-process behind this whole enterprise is: the simplistic and highly implausible pairing of the ambivalent, aimless character of Kate Winslet, no less (and that is another problem in Hollywood films: before they are characters, protagonists are first and foremost the actors played by them) married with a guy with a successful and highly lucrative career, juxtaposed with the duo of the self-indulgent "Prom King" (Patrick Wilson) whose glory days are obviously far behind and the gorgeous "Prom Queen" with a cool (though far humbler - in terms of the American success scale) PBS job as a documentary director (don't even get me started in the Irak documentary shtick; and will someone please explain to me what "crowns" the atrocious kid actor was referring to?). It seems there that the author wanted to have each protagonist be married to their mirror opposite (and secretly crave for the opposite of the opposite, are you following me?). For perfect symmetry (and accepting the Hollywood axiom that the duo Kate Winslet & husband represent the unfortunate "plain people" and Patrick Wilson & Jennifer Connelly represent the "gorgeous people", a very important distinction in American society, apparently), shouldn't Jennifer Connelly be ferociously ambitious? Furthermore, you've got to love Hollywood for presenting a person of such flawless beauty (and obviously very concerned by it as shown in the small scene where Connelly reprimands Wilson for threatening her fabulous figure by cooking delicious pasta. More on that later) as a PBS documentary filmmaker, not that a beautiful woman can't be a soldier of that dignified monolithic industry of "lofty ideals", no no. I just don't think that such a dazzling creature could be anything BUT a Hollywood actress, period. Now getting back to the seemingly inoffensive pasta scene. It obviously reveals one of the great Keys to Success (Beauty, Successful Career, Faithful Marriage): self-control. Which leaves us to conclude that self-indulgence leads to the opposite: Ugliness, Pedophilia, Sloth...Sex! Notice that I haven't even bothered to mention the pedophile since its insertion in the story was meant to deal with what the authors of this film initially thought was the subject of the story... something to do with the obvious and not so obvious sexual deviances, or the age old necessity to fingerpoint at a greater evil to mask one's own smaller evils, I really couldn't tell, because that would imply that the authors' intention was to put side by side adultery (heavens, that word! sounds as ominous as "sodomy") and pedophilia: adultery as sex deviation?! No. "Be a good boy" are the closing words of a dying old mother, (representing bygone, more moral and repressed times?) offering the ultimate advice to all suffering souls: don't self-indulge.
There is especially a point that is a clear sign to me how poor the thought-process behind this whole enterprise is: the simplistic and highly implausible pairing of the ambivalent, aimless character of Kate Winslet, no less (and that is another problem in Hollywood films: before they are characters, protagonists are first and foremost the actors played by them) married with a guy with a successful and highly lucrative career, juxtaposed with the duo of the self-indulgent "Prom King" (Patrick Wilson) whose glory days are obviously far behind and the gorgeous "Prom Queen" with a cool (though far humbler - in terms of the American success scale) PBS job as a documentary director (don't even get me started in the Irak documentary shtick; and will someone please explain to me what "crowns" the atrocious kid actor was referring to?). It seems there that the author wanted to have each protagonist be married to their mirror opposite (and secretly crave for the opposite of the opposite, are you following me?). For perfect symmetry (and accepting the Hollywood axiom that the duo Kate Winslet & husband represent the unfortunate "plain people" and Patrick Wilson & Jennifer Connelly represent the "gorgeous people", a very important distinction in American society, apparently), shouldn't Jennifer Connelly be ferociously ambitious? Furthermore, you've got to love Hollywood for presenting a person of such flawless beauty (and obviously very concerned by it as shown in the small scene where Connelly reprimands Wilson for threatening her fabulous figure by cooking delicious pasta. More on that later) as a PBS documentary filmmaker, not that a beautiful woman can't be a soldier of that dignified monolithic industry of "lofty ideals", no no. I just don't think that such a dazzling creature could be anything BUT a Hollywood actress, period. Now getting back to the seemingly inoffensive pasta scene. It obviously reveals one of the great Keys to Success (Beauty, Successful Career, Faithful Marriage): self-control. Which leaves us to conclude that self-indulgence leads to the opposite: Ugliness, Pedophilia, Sloth...Sex! Notice that I haven't even bothered to mention the pedophile since its insertion in the story was meant to deal with what the authors of this film initially thought was the subject of the story... something to do with the obvious and not so obvious sexual deviances, or the age old necessity to fingerpoint at a greater evil to mask one's own smaller evils, I really couldn't tell, because that would imply that the authors' intention was to put side by side adultery (heavens, that word! sounds as ominous as "sodomy") and pedophilia: adultery as sex deviation?! No. "Be a good boy" are the closing words of a dying old mother, (representing bygone, more moral and repressed times?) offering the ultimate advice to all suffering souls: don't self-indulge.
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