Nosferatu is eminently pre-occupied with sex but wants so badly to pull at its intersectionality (sex and power, sex and class, unconscious desire, conscious desire and, of course, jealousy) that it’s sometimes overtaken by distractions and plot digressions fueled by its lack of focus. As a result, we spend a lot of time (I guess, the dread is supposed to be building?) with “Supporting Characters” that don’t stand on their own.
Those supporting characters take up a lot of space. Aaron…
A good ol' story of post-WWII working class apathy.
Albert Finney plays Arthur, a disaffected factory worker in central England who spends every free moment dicking around, literally and figuratively. He has derision for his fellow workers, not for their lack of ambition (he doesn't have much himself) but for how quietly they accept their roles. Arthur works decently hard at his job, just like they do, he's just more vocal about how much it sucks.
What does he do…
This was a pretty fun, if too long “revenge ghost” film with some amazing music cues, a kaleidoscope of babies and Gael Garcia Bernal’s non-union Indonesian equivalent. There are some really inventive and kinetic action sequences including a chase at a shipyard that kicks genuine ass and the camerawork is genuinely good.
Something like this is ideally ultra tight but when a lady has five henchmen (plus all of the henchmen’s henchmen!) and two prostitute scammers to light up… it takes time. There is a scene where the ghost eats 200 lil’ meat skewers in 10 seconds. Top notch editing.
Really fascinating proto-Matrix starring a guy giving a Connor O’Malley performance who eats trash and has ideas that will change the world. A guy who looks like Jonathan Groff shows up for fifteen minutes and does a shockingly good bit of meta-comedy in a yellow power-blazer. He’s a conceptual artist who paints large canvases of the earth being cracked like an egg. They’re dope.
While it needed probably ten less minutes of big time 1989 CGI where we’re treated to a block style map with a tracking dot on it… it’s paced like a missile. Trenchant stuff, and I can’t believe I mean that.
