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Matthew Martens
Picture of Matthew Martens

About Me

Then I sat down on the stone in the middle, and looked all round about. I felt I had come such a long, long way, just as if I were a hundred miles from home, or in some other country, or in one of the strange places I had read about in the ‘Tales of the Genie’ and the ‘Arabian Nights,’ or as if I had gone across the sea, far away, for years and I had found another world that nobody had ever seen or heard of before, or as if I had somehow flown through the sky and fallen on one of the stars I had read about where everything is dead and cold and grey, and there is no air, and the wind doesn’t blow.

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The Deep Blue Sea

Love among the ruins, ostensibly, but in the end (although not the beginning, which has pathos and promise) Davies' Rattigan is too stately and refined a chamber piece to believably convey the powerful grip on its protagonist of a life-altering, soul-shattering love. Not that Weisz doesn't give it a terrific try -- what heart the film possesses belongs entirely to her. But Davies' true love is a vanished Britain.

Style

  • Melancholy
  • Serene & subtle
  • Fashionable alienation
  • Deliriously surreal
  • Nouvelle vague
  • Rebellion!
  • Canonical classics
  • High Art
  • Vanguard cinema
  • Other-worldly
  • Neorealist
  • Avant-garde

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Displaying 2 wall posts.
Picture of orangey

orangey

8Oct11

nice avatar/icon

Picture of H. Paul Moon

H. Paul Moon

7Jun11

Regarding your comment, "Malick’s is a closed world, and he is hermetically sealed within it. It’s an interesting world to visit, but despite some occasional and affecting overlap, it is not our own." Two points: speaking on behalf of all humanity is a broad stroke that you make, and he doesn't. And: The world he aims to depict is the one I know. You could join it anytime, through the open door.

  • Picture of Matthew Martens

    Matthew Martens

    7Jun11

    I appreciate your generosity of spirit. I understand that my concluding sentence may seem to close off the possibility of multiple worlds, perhaps infinite worlds, each created by individual subjects, and occasionally shared via various religious or other social arrangements. That the vision represented in The Tree of Life itself closes off this possibility by adhering to a more or less orthodox Catholic rendering of reality is what I was responding to. I think that The Tree of Life is in some ways a remarkably beautiful work. But I feel that it falls well short of its ambitions, and that it is finally cramped by its theology. I certainly begrudge no one their awe, nor whatever world it is that they choose to inhabit.

  • Picture of H. Paul Moon

    H. Paul Moon

    8Jun11

    You might not have thought so from my initial comment, but what drew me to your insight was admiration, of all things. I have found the nearly unanimous reaction to this film utterly mystifying in its syncretic, "spiritual" disregard for Malick's precise theological argument. As my observations went in the following essay, I found little to nothing reminiscent of your honest reaction surrounding the film's impact: http://mubi.com/films/the-tree-of-life/reviews/23603

Reviews

Displaying 1 of 1 review.
The Tree of Life

The Tree of Life

However erratic or elliptical Malick’s films may be in their execution, the animating theme that runs through them remains constant: the fallen state of Man, as set against the sublime but bewildering…  read review

Ratings

Displaying 4 of 106 ratings
The Deep Blue Sea

The Deep Blue Sea

  • Currently 3.0/5 Stars.
Despair

Despair

  • Currently 3.0/5 Stars.
War Horse

War Horse

  • Currently 4.0/5 Stars.
Ali: Fear Eats the Soul

Ali: Fear Eats the Soul

  • Currently 4.0/5 Stars.

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Displaying 2 of 2 comments