Where are the movie brainiacs and their dissection of this movie? I just watched it and, while entertained, have absolutely no idea what is going on (or supposed to be going on).
I intend to watch it again in hopes of picking up some meaning, and your help in making sense of this will be appreciated.
Look OP, I know I'm late, but who knows who else needs it? I'm not trying to be an intellectual here, I'll just try to put my subjective views about the movie.
If someone disagrees, there is no need to be an ass about and adress me personally. Also I don't think this thread would fare well in helping people getting some info if we keep talking about the emperor's new clothes you just found out. Let's try to help out a fellow user and add instead of subtract.
I hope to not ruin the movie:
This movie is permeated by very strong metaphors about the way we are living our lives after the double revolution(french/industrial)and how we came about the nature of our feelings of abandonment related to god.
The scientific expansion in knowledge brought us all way down here to now, and right now, I think it is clear that science is not, maybe will never be, ready to tackle subjects or answer the same questions it swore to do 200y ago. I'm agnostic BTW.
There is mention to all the absurd rituals we, as an end to postmodernist society, have come to adopt and engage as our modus operandi. Several scenes shows us what we got as a result. What? Yeah look at examples below:
When he goes to the church, it is crumbling, no one is inside, besides the priest(god himself?). He scorns St. Tony talking about how the faith has been merchantilized due to the capitalist nature of our relations. "You have the soul of a common merchant"!
Another one that is very straightforward is the police station. Policeman are lazy and portraited as incapable, unless they actually stumble on some case by accident. Today, many police cases erupt due to anonymous tips and snitches.
I think the club got its name related to the soviet economic and scientific expansion called Golden Age. You can see that the elite has excess while others have nothing to live by or are proletarians. They are also atheists, hence we observe social degradation by the abscence of some greater moral values than the ones of a materialistic society.
I really don't want to think that the actor's play was about him and his life. Since the actor was not only screwing his wife, but also making fun of his fate.
The last scene by the club's owner(devil?) is referenced like they were experiencing purgatory, "we are the last people" in an earth without god.
Well I still couldn't make most of the movie and other metaphors like:
- The woman who appears blind and dressed in white(terrifying), later in black. Is she death?
- He takes dog home from a dream? Was the dog dead all along? Was he trying redeem himself by burying it?
- He eats his lover's heart in the end(cannibalism, maybe love is just another way of consuming?
The relationship to catholic St. Anthony temptation? As one review says, "when it become so hard to be good?" St. Anthony was continously tempted to abondon his faithful lifestyle.
Well I'm sure there is a lot to this movie that I missed, but still, even if I got it all wrong, there is strong quotes and passages of literature of great poets like William Blake, Shakespeare and, if not wrong, Anton Chekhov that will stay with me for a long time because I've never seem it be used so well in an update sketch or play like:
"There are angels among us...and they can be recognized by their dire defenselessness".
"Our outlook changes completely merely by... being higher than we were used to".
"I'd rather destroy what is mine than give it away".
I'm done. I hope it helps people with their missing links and I suggest you to watch it alone within a completely dark room, this movie is terrifying in a weird way.
“Gentlemen, You Can’t Fight In Here! This is The War Room!”: Dr. Strangelove