Reviews of Love Streams
Displaying all 3 reviews
Pedro Macharé
20Nov09
Yesterday Thursday November the 19th I watched for the very first time John Cassavetes last masterpiece ‘Love Streams’.
What can I say I happened to be just stuck for this beautiful movie I couldn’t move from my bed watching the movie.
First Cassavetes’ movie I saw was ‘The Killing of a Chinese Bookie’ and it’s just brilliant. Then arrived ‘Faces’, ‘A Child is Waiting’, ‘Too Late Blues’ and the marvellous ‘Shadows’. ‘A Woman under the influence’ was the last till ‘Love Streams’ appeared 24 hours ago.
A big hooray for the One and Only!!!
John Cassavetes
Salem Kapsaski
29Oct09
“Love Streams” film follows middle-aged writer Robert (John Cassavetes) and his sister Sarah (Gena Rowlands), a recently divorced mother with a history of depressions, who together with her daughter Debbie visits ill and dying people. Sarah soon loses her daughter who decides she’d rather stay with her father. Hurt by this event Sarah has to take her trip alone.
Robert lives with a bunch of weird girls in a Playboy mansion style situation, roaming bars in search for subjects to write about. Among the colourful cast of characters he encounters he meets Susan, a black lounge singer with a wonderful voice who he seems to instantly fall for (just before literally falling down the set of stairs to her apartment). Despite his obvious interest in her he struggles and fails to make an emotional connection and things become more complicated for him when an ex of his brings over his son who he hasn’t seen since the day he was born.
Just as the kid almost settled in with Robert, Sarah shows up at his place unannounced and the siblings are finally united on screen (followed by one of the most beautiful and tender embraces I have seen in a movie) and the emotional roller-coaster really kicks off.
Both Cassavetes and Rowland are at their best, and all of their scenes together are simply exhilarating. The film is filled with raw emotions, playful moments and surreal dreams and nearly tore me apart in ways I never expected. It’s also one of Cassavetes most beautifully shot films (proving that he is not only capable to draw the interior of the soul but also has a painter’s eye for the exterior world)
“Love Streams” has a way of breaking the fourth wall without directly doing so. Many of the questions Robert poses to the girl he interviews early on could have easily been directed at the audience, same with Sara’s psychiatric session. The most fantastic instance of this however is the ending, which has to be one of the most wonderful scenes I have ever seen. (5/5)
- Currently 5.0/5 Stars.
DAVE A
12May09
- * * * SPOILER ALERT * * * *
Near the very end of the film, when Robert Harmon is alone in his house standing near his jukebox, Cassavetes takes his hat off and waves goodbye to the camera, as if saying farewell to both his audience and the film medium itself. Seconds later, when he exits the frame, it feels as if, for all intents and purposes, the man has just died.
It’s a sad sad moment, and yet, having left us with such a delightfully eccentric movie—-LOVE STREAMS is and always will be one of my absolute favorites—-it’s hardly tragic.