torture?
please excuse the brief rant here.
I'm usually a pretty easy going an open minded viewer able to appreciate films across the board genre wise. I've also rarely felt the call to participate in these message boards. But I saw 35 rhums last night and am still reeling from the experience. To say it was worse than my time at Guantanemo bay would be excessive and uncalled for but it was certainly more tedious than watching my beard grow- one of my efforts at entertaining myself during my stay there.
This film used every trick in the book to slow itself down to near inertia and pulled it off with flying colours. This isn't a problem if there is something there for the viewer to immerse themselves in and be gently led through the film. But it is if you've got bugger all to connect to. Despite some nice underplayed acting, simple camera work and realism the whole thing just went nowhere. And that's not to say the kind of existential 'nowhere' the film might have been leaning towards though it certainly did a good job of inflicting a cocktail of 'ennui' 'malaise' and nausea upon my poor self. I have to say I'm stunned that this film has been received so well. Barely an hour had passed (felt like weeks) and I was begging for the film to stop or the projector to set alight. I'm sure alot of heart was put into this project and the director thought she was really onto something but unfortunately that 'something' never made it to the screen. My highlight of the evening was a brief spell of curiosity as to how they got the cat to act so dead as they put it in the bag, an ironic scene since the cat certainly wasn't in the bag with this movie. In fact I think the cat probably had the mishap of dying during the making of the film. Helas I very much doubt curiosity killed it. It must have simply lost the will to live and I can only hope that it's untimely death was not as slow, painful and excruciating as viewing the result.
The only upside was that I saw the film at a free cinema and had a lovely lady on my arm but even this was overshadowed by the fact that I was restrained from getting the hell out of there before the credits rolled and for once in my life feeling I had grounds to ask for my money back...
yours affectionately
Ratso