I've heard movies like this described rather pretentiously as "not spoon feeding you the story." There's a difference, though, in telling a story, and having a story loosely associated with a series of tangentially related washed out shots. Movies like this are very artistic. But I'm reminded of other art media which tell a story. Like poetry for instance. Imagine that you have a beautiful poem. Then someone randomly cuts out 75% of the words. What you're left with makes sense in the context of the missing pieces but by itself is an almost random collection of words. Those words might be descriptive and beautiful but they aren't cogent at all. When someone fills in the missing words, the reader may say "Oh, yes! It makes perfect sense and the fact that you tried to convey that idea incompletely makes you a genius!" I'm not that kind of person. I don't think you're a genius when you intentionally leave out part of your story or tell it out of sequence simply for art's sake. In fact, that maneuver is, by now, cliché. The first few films that experimented in partial story telling, forcing the cinematography to carry the film, may have been clever. At this point, however, it's lazy. It's a genre enjoyed almost exclusively by people who like to feel privileged and intelligent by "getting it." There's nothing really to get. It's an art film. It's meant to convey emotion, not a story. Anyone who "gets" the story is the one missing the point. These types of movies are marketed like regular movies which is dishonest. Hell, I just watched a trailer for it that seriously makes it look like an action thriller. The two minute trailer also easily managed to incorporate 90% of the film's dialogue (monologue). If it were an honest trailer, it'd have no ___logue whatsoever and would just be a series of washed out shots of a bikini clad female character who was never actually introduced and a guy running on a treadmill in a space station.
Stories have character development. They have a plot. They have a climax. They make you identify with the characters. Love had a character who changed, yes, but he didn't really develop. We were given glimpses here and there of his daily routine over the course of several years but it was basically the same scene, shot from different angles, for about 70 minutes or so. Realistically, the ending sequence could have happened 45 minutes earlier in the film and nothing would have been lost.
I didn't hate the movie but it did make me frustrated. I hung in there because I kept thinking there'd be a twist or resolution. Some kind of payoff. But in the end, it was a movie that spoke almost entirely in platitudes. It said a lot of very wise things that all seemed to mean nothing.
Stories have character development. They have a plot. They have a climax. They make you identify with the characters. Love had a character who changed, yes, but he didn't really develop. We were given glimpses here and there of his daily routine over the course of several years but it was basically the same scene, shot from different angles, for about 70 minutes or so. Realistically, the ending sequence could have happened 45 minutes earlier in the film and nothing would have been lost.
I didn't hate the movie but it did make me frustrated. I hung in there because I kept thinking there'd be a twist or resolution. Some kind of payoff. But in the end, it was a movie that spoke almost entirely in platitudes. It said a lot of very wise things that all seemed to mean nothing.