Just saw this at London Film Festival and am utterly shocked by the low IMDB score - The Congress is big, bold, brilliant, features some stunning performances and is now in my top 5 "watch again as soon as possible" films. Full review here: http://www.thelondonfilmreview.com/film-review/review-the-congress/
shareI saw the movie in Paris this summer and even though I had a lot of issues with it at the time (especially with the animation parts; not the visuals but rather the many loose plot threads started and quickly dropped), I still felt it was something that needed to be experienced and time has only made the flaws fade into the background. It's an amazing movie both as a dark satire of Hollywood studio moviemaking and as a new acid trip classic. I can't wait to watch it again during its general release next year, and banging my drum to gets others to do the same.
There's something I know when I'm with you that I forget when I'm away.
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I saw it at Waterloo and was dismayed to find that the audience reaction to it was sharply negative. The people sitting behind me (who themselves worked in the animation industry) were mocking the film the entire time, talking about how technologically impossible it is.
On the other hand, it was one of my favourite films there. I thought the question of CURRENT technological impossibility was rather missing the forest for the trees. It is true that what the film describes probably won't work in the way it describes or with the methods it describes, but it seems to me very likely that something like that will come IN ONE WAY OR ANOTHER because our culture is inexorably heading in that direction.
Part of the problem may be that the film moves too fast for its own good. Just when it gets you comfortable with one mind-blowing concept, it moves past it, as if the scriptwriters were constantly asking "but what will happen when THAT is the new normal?". The result is that I suspect many people were just left behind. Heck, I didn't fully understand everything either.
That's just it, Niffiwan, it went over most people's head, that is where the negativity comes from and to not admit that, people are being highly critical of the animation or whatever else they can come up with so they don't have to admit they aren't smart enough to follow along. I doubt I can find anyone to share this with...too bad, so sad.
However, I thought like you did, it was an amazing journey, and I followed it just fine. It was a cerebral sci-fi depiction of both human behavior and technology merged together in the new age philosophy of "everything is in our mind, if you are in the dark, it's because you want to be."
QofH3arts
the imdb score should be about a 1.7 this movie rocked nothing.
Who took my toast?
I saw Ari's first film Waltz With Bashir when I worked as a volunteer at the BFI's back in 2008 (lived in London for close to 4 years). I made sure to get myself booked to work the flick because I love animation. I'm so glad he came back strong with The Congress. I'm shocked at the low score as well so I'm tempted to write my own review.
shareI'm shocked by how little people like it! Very few movies blow my mind but this is one of them.
It's not so bad as long as you can keep the fear from your mind.