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Complex movie or director trying too hard


I will give credit where it deserves..its a very well made eerie atmospheric movie ...i felt the sense of gloom,Inevitability and downbeat through out the movie.But I did feel the director trying to make the movie complex rather than just being content with the achievement in film-making.

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Your comment is too complex. I don't understand it.

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did the director try too hard in some places ?

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Can you restate the question, but make it simpler?

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I respectfully disagree. I think the director succeeded spectacularly. I give it a 9.8/10. I was in a state of stunned awe and wonder after viewing this excellent film. The last film which I remember having that reaction for was 2001: A Space Odyssey way back in 1968. That's the only film I've ever rated 10/10.



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to a certain extent i agree with this film being in the same vein as 2001...its one of the few truly great atmospheric movies i have seen..its got that feeling of "this is something we dont know and we cant really fight it" which was cleverly shown in the way they loose time after entering it..one thing which felt odd is some of the cuts back to her relationship with her husband felt unnecessary..i am not saying don't cut to past at all but they did it 3 or 4 times and 2 of those times felt not necessary and also the resemblance of the house with bear attack with their actual house at the starting felt kind of cheap.

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Some excellent points, sid!



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The duplicate house in the Shimmer reveals that the alien not only cloned Kane's body but also duplicated his mind including his memories. Duplicating Cassie's mind into the zombie bear is the same idea in a much horrifying way.
The house is also the one with "the room with the bed" that Kane mentioned. In case, the audience didn't catch that from Lena's acting as she looked around in the house and realized it, we can double down on that when Antress added "I guess this is a bedroom." Those two houses are connected. "Kane" told Lena that "The door was open, and...I saw you.". What he left out there is "..saw you continue having the affair." So, it is not a coincidence that he returned home when Lena started painting their bedroom's wall in shame and regret - he saw that and then decide to go through the door (teleport). The purpose of those cuts back is to let the audience figure this out.
If this is just a cheap move for budget control, I am sure the director could shoot the scene from different angles of the house so that the audience would never find out.

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Good explanation 👍

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but at the beginning when she is painting, we did see him at the bottom of the stairs looking at the frames on the wall and then climb up the stairs into the room..so which is the "room with the bed" ? he did envision the whole house

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He was outside the bedroom in the Shimmer house, and he saw her painting the wall from there. He chose to show up at the downstairs, tried not to frighten her and complicate the situation further. Later, when Lena demanded an explanation, he started being honest with her about where he was (teleported from). That explained him saying "No, I was outside the room" after Lena just heard and saw him came upstairs. At that point of the movie, him saying "I saw you. I recognized you." does trick the audience thinking maybe he got some kind of PTSD, but by the end, we know it is a pun (or we should call it contradictory meanings). As it is when the real Kane told Lena "I do, love you" before he left. One of the beauty of this movie is that it left the teleportation part to our imagination. For example, when Lena crawled up from the hole in the tower, her duplicate was already ahead of her, standing by the door.

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trying to make the movie complex rather than just being content with the achievement in film-making.


This implies what? That directors should only do shallow but professionally crafted films?

Craft over art? Form over substance? Spoon feeding over allegory?

No thanks. We got enough of that already.

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