Ash Cowder

What on earth is Bergman trying to state with this? Is it some sort of anti-feminist diatribe? Johan is allowed to be a complete a-hole throughout and Marianne goes along with much of it. Why? The first hour or so was pretty good – it was solidly trending towards 7/10 territory. The score began to plummet when Johan first tells Marianne he’s seeing someone else and is leaving her. This ordinarily devastating news evokes a very mild reaction from Marianne. She seems barely upset. The two agree to bed down together that night (!?), though in bed the conversation escalates. But again, the escalation is almost entirely from Johan. Despite the fact that HE is the one who’s cheating, HE is the one who’s leaving, HE is the one who told all their friends and left her to be the last to know for YEARS, he’s the one that gets pissed off and essentially tells her “I don’t give a damn what you tell the kids, I don’t give a damn what you feel, I’m gone.” She again takes all of this awfully well. Six months pass, during which Johan has made NO contact with his kids and forgot their birthdays, and despite this Marianne is portrayed as caring only about f@#*ing and showing affection towards Johan again. We fast forward in time again to when our lovely Johan now decides to lock Marianne in his office and then beat and kick her. Marianne STILL CONTINUES TO SHOW AFFECTION FOR HIM, right up until (mercifully), the last frame. Here’s another kick in the pants – Liv Ullmann said she was “becoming more involved in the feminist movement while making the film.” Really!?

Casey Affleck: my god, son! What an astonishing performance. I hesitate to even call it a performance because there are moments (most especially the titular assassination scene) when Affleck doesn’t appear to be acting at all! The fear and jealousy and insecurity you’re seeing are real; they simply have to be in order to be that convincing. You have to see what he does in this movie to believe it.

I had seen most of this movie already over the years, but I think this was actually the first time I sat down and watched it all from beginning to end. I mean, well, it's David Lean, it's Omar Sharif, it's Julie Christie. It's a grand, impressive, epic saga isn't it? I think it sort of suffers, though, from the fact that Bridge On the River Kwai and Lawrence of Arabia are SO fantastic (at least they are to me). Sort of the way I feel Pablo Honey suffers because OK Computer and Kid A are just so fantastic.

Is it a pretty amazing film especially from the vantage point of being a monumental technical accomplishment? Sure. However, it's hurt by the inclusion of corny Braveheart battle speeches, the typical drawn-out final battle between #1 Good Guy and #1 Bad Guy, and the just-a-little-too-perfect/ideal scenario of the creatures coming to the rescue during the conclusive battle scene.

Simply put, it's one of the greatest films of the decade. Why is it so terrific? For me, it was the incredible, raw emotion of it. Hathaway and Jackman especially. They just laid waste to those roles. Plus the whole live-action singing idea was brilliant. I'm not a huge fan of movie musicals, but this one was extraordinarily well done. It's earnest almost to its detriment, unapologetically sticking to its medium and I admire that about it.

In the immortal words of Taggart from Blazing Saddles: "What in the Wide World of Sports is a-goin' on here?" Ambitious? Yes. Beautiful, striking imagery? Check. Did some of it sail entirely over my head into the wall behind me? Absolutely. Even Sean Penn said, "A clearer and more conventional narrative would have helped the film without, in my opinion, lessening its beauty and its impact." I guess I just didn't really get this one. On the other hand, a movie with music from John Tavener and Gustav Mahler can't be all bad. 3/5