46/19
OvertureWritten by Josh Schmidt and Marius De VriesPerformed by Josh Schmidt
After decades alone, a wealthy family living in a salt mine encounters a stranger.. Joshua Oppenheimer described the film as an exploration of whether we as human beings can come to a place where our guilt is too much to recover from our pasts.. I don't think I had been equally excited for a film as I was nervous in a long time.
Technically, this film has the sauce
Oppenheimer's feature debut was bound to be an uncompromising and singular vision, but I truly haven't seen anything like it. Clearly they have no idea how to market this film because neon is supposed to be releasing this limited in December and there's still no poster or trailer. I digress, but this film truly had me perked up throughout most of its runtime.
The weak links are in the story and the music
Really interesting and detailed environment, cinematography and the use of lighting are also critical and work to contextualize the scenes. While I don't think the golden age-style musical is necessary a gimmick, I don't think it's as fully realized or utilized as well as they'd hoped. I'd say for at least half the songs I was engaged but they all sound so similar.
With all that being said, I really liked this movie
Aside from the moments where it feels like the visuals are meant to coincide with what's happening, it's just people walking around talking-singing how they feel. And it's a very thematically-loose film too, kind of has its eggs in too many baskets, without properly divulging into anything. When it's not scratching the surface of something profound, it can often feel trite.
You can't put it in a box and there's nothing like it which I think should merit a watch
It's not for everyone and the dude next to me was so obviously bored, along with my girlfriend who said she'd probably never watch it again but liked it enough. While it's not looking to satisfy any lingering questions you might have, or any larger questions at that, it's begging something of you and asking, "are we too far gone, or guilty, to recover from our past?"