Holy shit.
I can say without a sliver of a doubt that this is the most complex, multi-layered film I have ever seen. Tarkovsky takes stream-of-consciousness cinema and elevates it to something that is so far beyond normal dream sequences or nonlinear narratives; he’s genuinely able to make you feel like you’re within the dream of another human being. Despite it being incredibly difficult to follow at times, the final convergence of three different time periods was done so beautifully…
This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
I actually have a bit more to say about this than I initially thought I would; I’ve yet to see a film that fits the “horror/comedy” hybrid category better than this one.
Allegorically, there’s a TON going on here. You could interpret the whole journey from the city to the telephone box “graveyard” as a million different things — that doesn’t take away its shock value nor the fact that this was a long half an hour.
I do also…
Going off of the small handful of things I've heard about this film - I think it gets a little too much grief.
I liked it; there's something about this that feels very real and although it also feels kind of incomplete, you can absolutely see the fact that Aronofsky's undertones really never change - at least not a fundamental level. This was also an interesting role for Lucy Liu that I didn't realize was entirely in her arsenal.
All things considered - good stuff - but a very preliminary piece in his career.
This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
Working on getting through Aronofsky’s whole catalogue and I have to say this is probably his most underrated work as well as it being a structural masterpiece.
I really enjoyed the style here — it’s not something you can really see in any of his other films (or so I’ve watched thus far), but the whole monochromatic, drug fueled intellectual journey that Max goes on is tied together insanely well; the scenes of Sol’s stroke and the destruction of the…
