It should never be the case that after watching a film, you sit in the awakening theater and wonder why the thing was made. What did the filmmaker think was the value of the experience, that we would let him borrow our souls for a time?
I did ask that at the end of this. Its done well enough I think, at least so far as its bits. Its a story about a love, actually a simple story, about a love thwarted by a society. The reason is that we have two men, and we are supposed to (I guess) take it as a character study of a tortured existence an injustice whose consequence we see grind these two to bits.
Judging from the comments here, there is an audience of gay men for whom this matters. But I think that is less that the film has something worthwhile, than it portrays an injustice they personally know, so they simply welcome the acknowledgment.
But this thing has problems. There are matters of prison: two in fact, one for each man. This is so artificial even by movie terms that it lets us off the hook emotionally. When we are fed something that doesn't seem situated in our world, we lose it.
Also, it isn't just a love between two men, but a man and a boy. The man has a history of exploiting underage boys, and we learn that the boy has a profoundly damaged parental environment. These dynamics are written away.
Petersen is a quirky guy. "das Boot" was conceived from a place of genius as a study of space. All else is ordinary and there merely to serve the goal of limited containment. Since then, in Hollywwod, he has turned into a hack. Before "das Boot" we have this, which I think we could see as a similar but failed study in containment/confinement. If so, it is worth existing, but not worth watching, not like, for example "Equus."
Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.
I did ask that at the end of this. Its done well enough I think, at least so far as its bits. Its a story about a love, actually a simple story, about a love thwarted by a society. The reason is that we have two men, and we are supposed to (I guess) take it as a character study of a tortured existence an injustice whose consequence we see grind these two to bits.
Judging from the comments here, there is an audience of gay men for whom this matters. But I think that is less that the film has something worthwhile, than it portrays an injustice they personally know, so they simply welcome the acknowledgment.
But this thing has problems. There are matters of prison: two in fact, one for each man. This is so artificial even by movie terms that it lets us off the hook emotionally. When we are fed something that doesn't seem situated in our world, we lose it.
Also, it isn't just a love between two men, but a man and a boy. The man has a history of exploiting underage boys, and we learn that the boy has a profoundly damaged parental environment. These dynamics are written away.
Petersen is a quirky guy. "das Boot" was conceived from a place of genius as a study of space. All else is ordinary and there merely to serve the goal of limited containment. Since then, in Hollywwod, he has turned into a hack. Before "das Boot" we have this, which I think we could see as a similar but failed study in containment/confinement. If so, it is worth existing, but not worth watching, not like, for example "Equus."
Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.