epilogue wrote:I adore Poor Things but American Fiction is 100% better.
I'm gonna watch Poor Things asap basically because 1) you like it, and 2) Jorge doesnt; I can't deal with that kind of inner conflict
I'll be very interested in your thoughts. My wife liked it less than I did. We both liked the movie to a point, but she felt it fell apart in the final act.
I just thought a lot of the third act turned what had previously been a wildly morally paradoxical movie, if not "ambiguous" (about the powder-keg evil of turning your brain off to inhumane fascist atrocity in order to maintain a microcosm of personal privilege) into just another plainly-told Nazi movie, instead of the movie that "told all the truth but told it slant", in the words of Emily Dickinson; but then, maybe that's the point? maybe the first two-thirds was the rising pressure, and the final third was the powder keg going off: the Nazi project expanding toward the Third Reich, etc; maybe the very "what the fuck" scene near the beginning when the two Nazis were discussing the mechanics of gas chambers was foreshadowing the movie's eventual lifting the lid off its subtlety? I don't know, I'm still asking myself a lot of questions and I'm not sure how to feel
I think the central conceit of having nearly all the small, quaint, domestic drama focussed on the family's house and garden is genius, though
going inside the empty gas chambers (I think that's what that was?) at the end of the movie was perfectly terrifying and replaced this horror movie's climax (the usual explicit violence) to insinuation and metaphor; both the movie's quietest and most chilling moment
when Rudolf threw up on the stairwell and made no effort to tell anyone or get it cleaned up; that was the kind of subtle, poetic image that told us everything we needed to know about what this man was like as a human
in many ways, this story was about Hedwig, though, and the incredible inhumanity required to maintain a house, a family, a personal legacy, with the full knowledge of what her husband is doing, and somehow convincing herself that this house of cards is built on "love"; so it makes sense that in many ways, this is also (the brilliant) Sandra Hüller's movie, too
the sound design of this thing is insane; I watched it entirely on my phone but it still felt as expansive as the cinema; I could hear every background gunshot, scream, and train arriving with another "load" *shudder*
OK some of that last part was a lie, a reward for people still reading: I watched it on my TV, with average volume
I got about half an hour into Poor Things and couldn't watch any more, not because I didn't appreciate some of what it was doing as a slice of life Frankenstein fan-fiction (I disagree that it's ableist or misogynistic -- it's using a genre fable template to be *about* ableism and misogyny and much more besides), but because there was far too much triggering sexual content for me; I watch a lot of psychological horror about abuse but sexual is often (not always) where I draw the line
for two suggestions of movies that do similar, a little more subtly (but are about maternal, rather than paternal abuse), try "Sun Choke" (2015) and because disability is part of the conversation, the lighter thriller, "Run" (2020)
I just thought a lot of the third act turned what had previously been a wildly morally paradoxical movie, if not "ambiguous" (about the powder-keg evil of turning your brain off to inhumane fascist atrocity in order to maintain a microcosm of personal privilege) into just another plainly-told Nazi movie, instead of the movie that "told all the truth but told it slant", in the words of Emily Dickinson; but then, maybe that's the point? maybe the first two-thirds was the rising pressure, and the final third was the powder keg going off: the Nazi project expanding toward the Third Reich, etc; maybe the very "what the fuck" scene near the beginning when the two Nazis were discussing the mechanics of gas chambers was foreshadowing the movie's eventual lifting the lid off its subtlety? I don't know, I'm still asking myself a lot of questions and I'm not sure how to feel
I think the central conceit of having nearly all the small, quaint, domestic drama focussed on the family's house and garden is genius, though
going inside the empty gas chambers (I think that's what that was?) at the end of the movie was perfectly terrifying and replaced this horror movie's climax (the usual explicit violence) to insinuation and metaphor; both the movie's quietest and most chilling moment
when Rudolf threw up on the stairwell and made no effort to tell anyone or get it cleaned up; that was the kind of subtle, poetic image that told us everything we needed to know about what this man was like as a human
in many ways, this story was about Hedwig, though, and the incredible inhumanity required to maintain a house, a family, a personal legacy, with the full knowledge of what her husband is doing, and somehow convincing herself that this house of cards is built on "love"; so it makes sense that in many ways, this is also (the brilliant) Sandra Hüller's movie, too
the sound design of this thing is insane; I watched it entirely on my phone but it still felt as expansive as the cinema; I could hear every background gunshot, scream, and train arriving with another "load" *shudder*
OK some of that last part was a lie, a reward for people still reading: I watched it on my TV, with average volume
Yeah the sound design is really something. Check out the movie’s wiki page for more about what went into that. I think I posted it somewhere last week too.
Ms Harmless wrote:I got about half an hour into Poor Things and couldn't watch any more, not because I didn't appreciate some of what it was doing as a slice of life Frankenstein fan-fiction (I disagree that it's ableist or misogynistic -- it's using a genre fable template to be *about* ableism and misogyny and much more besides), but because there was far too much triggering sexual content for me; I watch a lot of psychological horror about abuse but sexual is often (not always) where I draw the line
for two suggestions of movies that do similar, a little more subtly (but are about maternal, rather than paternal abuse), try "Sun Choke" (2015) and because disability is part of the conversation, the lighter thriller, "Run" (2020)
This is why I struggled through it too, and had to watch in several segments.
Almost bailed after she first starts having sex with the lawyer, as she was still so immature. That was uncomfortable. But I decided I wanted to finish the film to make sure she ended up okay in the end.
Ms Harmless wrote:I got about half an hour into Poor Things and couldn't watch any more, not because I didn't appreciate some of what it was doing as a slice of life Frankenstein fan-fiction (I disagree that it's ableist or misogynistic -- it's using a genre fable template to be *about* ableism and misogyny and much more besides), but because there was far too much triggering sexual content for me; I watch a lot of psychological horror about abuse but sexual is often (not always) where I draw the line
for two suggestions of movies that do similar, a little more subtly (but are about maternal, rather than paternal abuse), try "Sun Choke" (2015) and because disability is part of the conversation, the lighter thriller, "Run" (2020)
This is why I struggled through it too, and had to watch in several segments.
Almost bailed after she first starts having sex with the lawyer, as she was still so immature. That was uncomfortable. But I decided I wanted to finish the film to make sure she ended up okay in the end.
Ms Harmless wrote:I got about half an hour into Poor Things and couldn't watch any more, not because I didn't appreciate some of what it was doing as a slice of life Frankenstein fan-fiction (I disagree that it's ableist or misogynistic -- it's using a genre fable template to be *about* ableism and misogyny and much more besides), but because there was far too much triggering sexual content for me; I watch a lot of psychological horror about abuse but sexual is often (not always) where I draw the line
for two suggestions of movies that do similar, a little more subtly (but are about maternal, rather than paternal abuse), try "Sun Choke" (2015) and because disability is part of the conversation, the lighter thriller, "Run" (2020)
This is why I struggled through it too, and had to watch in several segments.
Almost bailed after she first starts having sex with the lawyer, as she was still so immature. That was uncomfortable. But I decided I wanted to finish the film to make sure she ended up okay in the end.
