This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
I think to some extent I went into this with negative energy but damn do I not like it. Virtue's Last Reward-ass cinema (though I like that more because it's funny). Fundamentally I think there's nothing interesting or impressive about tricking us with the (inherently illusory) medium of cinema. Genuinely my abiding feeling when the "timeline" twist because clear is "that's not big, and it's not clever tut tut tut".
That's not to say I can't enjoy a film with…
OK, not only is this the first one with Musidora in, but it also has a load of other cool shit. Really compelling battle of wits that doesn't go fully one way or the other between the protagonists and the antagonists. Strong female representation! (the main character's mam kills a guy with a poison pen!). And Musidora just singing like a wild hyena... let's go!
Yeah, unfortunately this doesn't really do much for me. I don't think the juxtaposition of flames on top of spermatozoa is particularly visually interesting, or particularly metaphorically interesting. It just ends up being about 5 minutes of thinking "yup, there's some sperm and there's a fire". And maybe once you'll go "yup, guess life is short" or "yup, guess life is just a jostle for survival" or whatever - I don't think it's super-evocative to be honest.
This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
What Fe says at the end of this film may sound a little bit overly-sentimental and cloying, and in my opinion, that's because she has it ever so slightly wrong. I don't think at the end, they stopped being "them" and "us" and became "us". There was still a "them", it's just that they had succeeded in identifying who that "them" really was - who in actuality was causing the conflict and problems on the boat - Santiago. Santiago had…
