The Puppetmaster is simultaneously one of the most emotionally moving and technically exquisite movies to have ever been made. But, beyond that, it is quite possibly the most important piece of cinema in my life.
Through middle and high school I'd obsessively watch movie. I made, estimated, thousands of lists now lost to old journals and word docs that I can't return to. There was a problem with me binging movie after movie and not logging them in a permanent…
I think, when I was a child, and I saw this movie for the first of many times, it was the first of many times I considered the apocalypse. The human caused destruction of everything holy and loving, the barren biblical wastelands caused not by four horsemen but by our own stupid hands. Powerful, anonymous people behind doors carving human beings into lines on the map, creating a post-colonial civilization, no hero can stop the coming tsunami of the deadly…
A radio, a flashlight, a picture, a knife, a voice recorder, a school uniform. This film is so detailed that even objects in this movie have arcs. Characters have arcs in arcs. Multiple arcs overlap and play out at the same time. Basically every character has an arc to some penance or redemption. It somehow feels too big to be kept to only four hours but at the same token shouldn’t be any longer. Idk if you could make a…
I am going to write a spoiler review after I’ve let it sit for a little more time, but for now will just say…
This could be the film of the decade. The film of Martin’s career. I have hardly walked out of a film so devastated. It’s a weird comparison but it feels like Scorsese’s Magnificent Ambersons. Death and decay of an era. So many wrongs done… all for the desire of owning the American landscape no matter the “collateral damage”. Evil that claims delusion. It’s perfection. Went in with highest expectations and honestly kind of exceeded them all.
