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Honest Thief posted:I think it's worse, Human Centipede is ridiculous, this is a kick in the gut I'm not sure if you're aware of the vast difference between Human Centipede and its sequel.
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Oct 24, 2015 20:09
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It seems pretty much everything I thought has already been pointed out, but this really felt like an introduction in a larger narrative. Television was a more suitable place for something like this.
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Nov 2, 2015 17:38
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Judakel posted:It seems pretty much everything I thought has already been pointed out, but this really felt like an introduction in a larger narrative. Television was a more suitable place for something like this. Really? I felt like it basically said it's piece and was done. Very self-contained.
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Nov 2, 2015 17:41
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Judakel posted:It seems pretty much everything I thought has already been pointed out, but this really felt like an introduction in a larger narrative. Television was a more suitable place for something like this. The larger narrative is US foreign policy circa 2025. Edit: More broadly, I feel like this is something a lot of good movies do--feel like they're part of something bigger, leave you wanting more. Wanting can be a good feeling. Weren't people in the Prisoners thread asking for a Detective Loki show? I think that kind of bigness is a Villenvenue strength.
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Nov 2, 2015 17:41
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porfiria posted:The larger narrative is US foreign policy circa 2025. Yeah I had trouble articulating why I felt that it was so self-contained, but I think it boils down to the fact I see the movie as a commentary on reality. Since it's saying something about the narrative of real life, its narrative doesn't need to continue to live and grow.
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Nov 2, 2015 17:44
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I feel the annoying thing about discussing this movie is pretty much every criticism I see I feel I can respond with "but that was the point" which I know from experience is the least convincing and least satisfying argument to have lobbed at you. Like in This instance I think the feeling that everything was rushed and part of a larger narrative that would have benefitted by having more time to examine it was the point.
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Nov 2, 2015 17:46
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axleblaze posted:I feel the annoying thing about discussing this movie is pretty much every criticism I see I feel I can respond with "but that was the point" which I know from experience is the least convincing and least satisfying argument to have lobbed at you. Like in This instance I think the feeling that everything was rushed and part of a larger narrative that would have benefitted by having more time to examine it was the point. They made that movie, it's called Traffic.
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Nov 2, 2015 17:52
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I probably would watch more Detective Loki, who is a fun take on a broad enough type to be slotted into a bunch of different stories, whereas there's not really anybody here who I think would be served by seeing more of. Like, it's perfect that Kate Macer (Emily Blunt) ends up signing the form, ends up unable to pull the trigger on Alejandro, and ends up out of the game, used up and done. Maybe she'll still be part of the FBI, but the real players got their brief use out of her and she's back to not mattering. Alejandro is a weapon and there's no particular reason to see him fired again. Matt's sure to get up to other shenanigans, but he never really mattered as a person. This certainly could have been made like a TV show in the style of True Detective, but rather than being the first two episode or whatever, you'd basically do things like make the sequence where Kate takes Jon Bernthal home into an entire episode, and Villeneuve simply doesn't need that much time to get across what we need to know. edit: Which I guess is a "that's the point" argument. But, well, it is the point that there's no future in this for Kate, no way for her to get back at the system that chewed her up. I guess what I'd say is that the fact that the story ends where it does, with nothing really fixed and just a slightly better accommodating of the status quo to be part of what makes the movie powerful. Sir Kodiak fucked around with this message at 17:55 on Nov 2, 2015 |
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Nov 2, 2015 17:53
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Snak posted:Yeah I had trouble articulating why I felt that it was so self-contained, but I think it boils down to the fact I see the movie as a commentary on reality. Since it's saying something about the narrative of real life, its narrative doesn't need to continue to live and grow. It feels self-contained because the film's narrative arc is Kate, the protagonist, being swept up in the inner workings of the deep state because of her own idealism and curiosity. As she becomes more aware of how things are really done, she has the idealism beaten out of her, and her curiosity is satisfied when she has a gun put to her head by Alejandro and she realizes that everything in the deep state is corruption and there is no place for do-gooders like herself. Her decision not to shoot Alejandro is a rejection of the possibility of becoming like the people she became entangled with. There is no "what happens next" because there is nothing more for her to do.
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Nov 2, 2015 17:58
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axleblaze posted:I feel the annoying thing about discussing this movie is pretty much every criticism I see I feel I can respond with "but that was the point" which I know from experience is the least convincing and least satisfying argument to have lobbed at you. Like in This instance I think the feeling that everything was rushed and part of a larger narrative that would have benefitted by having more time to examine it was the point. i guess I feel like so much of the movie's point is made through themes. Specifically, ones that are constructed by the framing of the characters and narrative within the movie. Extending this narrative would make the clarity and definition of these themes less "clean". I understand your complaint though. It's why I can't talk about Terrence Malick films.
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Nov 2, 2015 17:58
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It's not really a complaint, I just imagine being on the other side of this argument is aggravating because no one likes to hear "that was the point" when they talk about an aspect of something they didn't like. Hearing you were supposed to appreciate something you didn't like is never a convincing argument even if it's correct.
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Nov 2, 2015 18:04
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Leading with a bit of insight always makes "that was the point" easier to swallow, though I don't even use that phrase anymore because it's a real eye-roller.
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Nov 2, 2015 18:08
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Yeah, I'm not trying to come off as "that was the point" (I don't know if I'm one of the people being referenced), but I'll try to add some specifics of what I was alluding to in my last post. I think that one of this films strengths is that Kate and Alejandro, who are actually both protagonists, can be directly compared. They were both invited into this world of violence based on their desire for revenge. You can say it's because Alejandro's loss was bigger and more personal that he embraced the opportunity, but ultimately we don't know all the steps that he took on the path of become the character we see in the movie. We see Kate's reaction to the opportunity to turn to the dark side and embrace violence over principles. It's a natural impulse to want to flesh out characters more. To give them backstory and put their choices in the larger context of them as human characters. I think in this instance, that would actually detract from how powerful the presentation is. We see almost nothing of Kate's personal life and are given the same amount of her backstory as Matt is. Just like we're only briefly told Alejandro's backstory. I see Sicario as a story about ideologies, and establishing the characters in broad strokes and then quickly throwing them into the conflict lets their actions speak for themselves, like larger-than-life archetypes. I'm a big fan of character driven-drama. I just don't think that it would be an improvement in this situation. It's like well cropped photograph. It's beautiful, so it's natural to want to see more of the scene, what's the beyond the boarders of the image, but those boarders, and the composition they create, are actually a part of what makes it beautiful in the first place.
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Nov 2, 2015 20:45
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Liked it, reminded me a lot of The Hurt Locker in style. Whenever I see a female protagonist these days I expect a politically-correct route to be taken but the film had the courage to portray her as naive which was kinda cool. I felt Brolin's character was pretty cliched and uninteresting though.
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Nov 2, 2015 21:17
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porfiria posted:The larger narrative is US foreign policy circa 2025. That is an incredibly hyperbolic thing to say. Also, good movies don't leave you feeling like their characters need more time to develop.
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Nov 2, 2015 21:50
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How is it hyperbolic?
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Nov 2, 2015 21:55
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Judakel posted:Also, good movies don't leave you feeling like their characters need more time to develop. I agree. Sicario did not make me feel that way.
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Nov 2, 2015 21:56
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Ex-Priest Tobin posted:I felt Brolin's character was pretty cliched and uninteresting though. I liked his character as an exploration of that cliche, though that's something that was only really clear in retrospect. Like how his preference for a door-kicker with no investigative experience isn't because he prefers that attitude in general, which would be the cliche, but because he wants someone who won't know enough to ask the right questions. Or just how coldly cynical his support is for giving someone a chance at revenge, with Alejandro the ultimate realization of what it looks like to deploy someone like that. Basically, less a cliche and more a purposeful deconstruction of a particular archetype.
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Nov 2, 2015 21:57
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Snak posted:I agree. Sicario did not make me feel that way. Sicario is exactly that way.
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Nov 2, 2015 22:39
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Judakel posted:Sicario is exactly that way. I mean, it's fine if that's your opinion. I literally just made a post arguing that giving the characters "more time to develop" would actually lessen the impact of the ideological conflict at the heart of the story. You're trying to assert that there's some optimum, quantifiable, amount of "time for characters to develop" for a film to be good.
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Nov 2, 2015 22:54
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Snak posted:I mean, it's fine if that's your opinion. I literally just made a post arguing that giving the characters "more time to develop" would actually lessen the impact of the ideological conflict at the heart of the story. And I disagree. You never explain why it would. Apparently it just does. Shut it with your straw man.
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Nov 2, 2015 23:11
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Judakel posted:Also, good movies don't leave you feeling like their characters need more time to develop. Who's "you"?
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Nov 3, 2015 00:37
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I didn't come away from the film feeling like any of the characters were underdeveloped. I think it can just be a little jarring when everyone's actions are essentially useless - Macer tries to stand up against this institutional corruption and ends up (as in No Country for Old Men) realizing that the only two real options are to lose or to walk away. Brolin's character is trying to maintain the status quo through "controlled" chaos - he has that narcotizing, Kurtzian charisma that can almost make you buy what he is selling, but at the end of the day I am reminded of Karl Rove's quote:quote:"We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors … and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do." This, to me, is the framework that the characters are operating within. A lot of people misinterpret Macer as a purely reactionary character when the truth is that she is simply out of her element, trying to interpret reality just as it is being cast away and a new reality is being forged in its place. With most movies, what Macer is doing would effect change - she would be the Moral Outsider who calls the powers that be on their bullshit. This movie has a much more realistic, pessimistic take on the situation, but that doesn't mean her characterization goes up in smoke.
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Nov 3, 2015 01:26
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Judakel posted:And I disagree. You never explain why it would. Apparently it just does. You've made four posts in this thread (on this page!) so far and said absolutely nothing. Burden of proof is on you. BeanpolePeckerwood fucked around with this message at 09:31 on Nov 3, 2015 |
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Nov 3, 2015 08:27
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Grizzled Patriarch posted:I didn't come away from the film feeling like any of the characters were underdeveloped. I think it can just be a little jarring when everyone's actions are essentially useless - Macer tries to stand up against this institutional corruption and ends up (as in No Country for Old Men) realizing that the only two real options are to lose or to walk away. Brolin's character is trying to maintain the status quo through "controlled" chaos - he has that narcotizing, Kurtzian charisma that can almost make you buy what he is selling, but at the end of the day I am reminded of Karl Rove's quote: Kate's experience reminds me of when you get promoted or learn what your boss's job is like. All the things that you thought were important to your old job change, because you learn about whole new categories of causes and effect that you hadn't even though of before. At the beginning of the movie, Kate is capable and confident. She believes that she is opposing evil and protecting society from murders who kill peoples family members because they are inconvenient. And she is. But what she learns is that "her side" is not the side of the justice. It's just another faction that goes into people's houses and kills them, or kills them because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, or if they don't do what they're told. During the dinner scene, the boss tells Alejandro that what happened to his family wasn't personal. The idea is that the viewer, like Alejandro, will take offense at this because it's not like their deaths were an accident. But what would Alejandro tell the little boy whose father will never get see him play futbol? I think Nightcrawler and Sicario would be a hell of a double feature. I'm not sure I could handle those back to back.
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Nov 3, 2015 08:52
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I actually watched Nightcrawler after I got home from seeing Sicario in the theater. It was 
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Nov 3, 2015 09:35
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Nice to see Sicario continue Villeneuve's tradition of having a car be an absolutely terrible place to be.
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Nov 5, 2015 11:19
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BeanpolePeckerwood posted:You've made four posts in this thread (on this page!) so far and said absolutely nothing. Burden of proof is on you. He has already granted me that the characters are developed lightly, so I have nothing left to prove. Learn about argumentation before you comment. Let him explain why character development and the simplistic moral struggle at the heart of this film are mutually exclusive, or own up to the fact that the characters are poorly developed without an excuse. HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:Who's "you"? I wouldn't be suprised if you felt differently. Ugh. Judakel fucked around with this message at 18:47 on Nov 9, 2015 |
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Nov 9, 2015 18:38
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Talk to a therapist.
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Nov 9, 2015 18:42
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:Talk to a therapist. Stop trolling.
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Nov 9, 2015 18:45
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Finally got around to watching Enemy after totally loving Sicario, I hadn't seen any other of Villeneuve's movies before and I loved Enemy too! Will check out Prisoners when I get a chance. Is his earlier stuff worth looking for too?
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Nov 9, 2015 18:55
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Surlaw posted:Finally got around to watching Enemy after totally loving Sicario, I hadn't seen any other of Villeneuve's movies before and I loved Enemy too! Will check out Prisoners when I get a chance. Is his earlier stuff worth looking for too? Incendies is really good and I've heard unanimously positive things about Polytechnique.
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Nov 9, 2015 18:58
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Uncle Boogeyman posted:Incendies is really good and I've heard unanimously positive things about Polytechnique. Pretty much that's it, unless he's got some short films I've never seen.
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Nov 9, 2015 19:30
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Goddamn Sicario was good. Between this and Enemy, Villeneuve is definitely becoming one of my favourite current directors. Incendies was loving horrifying though, jesus. It's the kind of movie I can only stand to see once. Still need to see Prisoners but they took it off Netflix.
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Nov 10, 2015 03:00
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Judakel posted:He has already granted me that the characters are developed lightly, so I have nothing left to prove. Learn about argumentation before you comment. Let him explain why character development and the simplistic moral struggle at the heart of this film are mutually exclusive, or own up to the fact that the characters are poorly developed without an excuse. I'd love to hear you elaborate, actually, rather than co-opting other people's posts.
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Nov 10, 2015 04:11
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Hakkesshu posted:Goddamn Sicario was good. Between this and Enemy, Villeneuve is definitely becoming one of my favourite current directors. Incendies was loving horrifying though, jesus. It's the kind of movie I can only stand to see once. i actually found Sicario much more disturbing, although that might just be the use of actual photographs of mutilated cartel victims and stuff.
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Nov 10, 2015 04:16
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Hakkesshu posted:Incendies was loving horrifying though, jesus. It's the kind of movie I can only stand to see once. I felt that the first time I watched it, too. Then I watched it 3 more times. 
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Nov 10, 2015 04:18
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Surlaw posted:Finally got around to watching Enemy after totally loving Sicario, I hadn't seen any other of Villeneuve's movies before and I loved Enemy too! Will check out Prisoners when I get a chance. Is his earlier stuff worth looking for too? Yes! Although both Maëlstrom and Un 32 Août Sur Terre get pretty weird. The start of Un 32 Août Sur Terre might actually be my favourite thing he's done.
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Nov 10, 2015 11:05
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Another thought on Sicario — the ending reminded me of Prisoners in that the film cuts as soon as the protagonist finishes their arc. In Prisoners, Keller Dover goes from a you've-only-got-yourself survivalist to being able to call for help. Once he's calling for help (on his daughter's whistle, no less), it isn't actually that important whether or not Loki finds him. Similarly, Sicario ends as soon as Macer makes the decision to not shoot Alejandro. One of the stories of Sicario is of people having given up their morals in favour of pure "realistic" exercises of power. By drawing the gun on Alejandro from the balcony Macer shows that she could do the same — that she could be a wolf — but she chooses not to. Writing this out, I realize that this motif of breaking the cycle of violence and hatred is present in all of Incendies, Polytéchnique, and Maelström. HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:Josh Brolin's Kurtz-meets-The Dude. So I've been thinking about this description of Graver, and I think there's a part of Graver's Dudishness that hasn't been brought up yet. Sicario presents "just going with it" as something that can potentially be really bad. Most obviously, there's Macer refusing to 'just go with it' with whatever Graver and Alejandro are trying to do. But I think that something similar is also present in Graver's general philosophy: the world is 'just' a certain way so you have to just go with it; cartels and cartel violence are inevitable so the most that one can hope to achieve is to be in a good position relative to that violence. This is contrasted with sexual violence committed by the delta guys — "just lay back and let it happen." And again, I'm seeing something similar with his previous films. Both Incendies and Prisoners criticize (in different ways) the attitude that 'that's just the way the world is.' And I guess this fits in with Villeneuve's sort-of-magic-realism style: the world isn't "just" as it is, and we should never stop trying to imagine what it could be.
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Nov 10, 2015 11:30
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BeanpolePeckerwood posted:I'd love to hear you elaborate, actually, rather than co-opting other people's posts. You sound sincere so I will compose something in the next few days.
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Nov 13, 2015 00:12
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