A film that works brilliantly as an allegory for the way that the United States executes its idea of “progress” and how it’s often at best bumbling and ineffectual and at worst actively harmful because it never considers the communities that such progress might affect. I thought about gentrification, I thought about the way our country as a world power attempts to “liberate” other nations in its own interest.
It does all this though without preaching, with out making us…
"An inherent state of perfect" achieved through rigorous examination of what makes us imperfect. Laughter first as animalistic and base, and also the key to unlocking one's potential. Recalling the past, yes, but also "imagine".
The stories that we tell ourselves about ourselves, those contradictions, that's what Anderson's cinema is so adept at excavating. How the false narratives of our lives do eventually strike at a truth.
In many ways Scorsese's coldest and most disturbing film, because on top of the nature of the subject matter, he doesn't imbue the violence and the machinations of evil with the kind of film language we're accustomed to. Even in the somber, funerary experience of the irishman, we get the beautiful tracking shot leading to the barber shop massacre, and the nerve shattering suspense leading up to the climax of that particular film. We don't get any of that here,…
A huge leap forward for Nolan that is dragged down at times by his trademark flaws. There are long stretches that as inventive, riveting, and propulsive as anything he's ever done, which is a huge thing to say about a movie about men talking in rooms, as opposed to a team of thieves performing a mind heist. Any concerns I had that Nolan would not reckon with the absolute evil of the premise are dashed against the rocks, the film…
