The documentary Marwencol was fascinating and touching. This movie's main contribution could have been creating yet another layer of the whole thing - of a "set" and "characters" and "scenes"... From fact, to documentary to feature film.
But it didn't use that meta-layers that would justify this being made into a feature film. It leaves you not at an absolute worst bottom, but certainly noticeably complicit, or possibly feeling even "dirty" about this opportunistic approach. To remake a documentary about remaking a life of fiction following some real (documented) trauma. It could have been transcendent. Yet it is barely Ok as a film. Exploitation may be a word that comes up, but this may arguably apply - even if clearly to a much lesser extent - to Marwencol. But if you can't see the difference in scale bw a modest independent doc, to its reiteration (with much loss, IMHO, as I have probably made clear already) in a Hollywood version, from director to actors. It panders too much to the sort of viewer who "needs" to be spoonfed, even as most people actually don't need this... Any human who had had to grapple with trauma and/or reinvention - and who doesn't at some point or another, in some way or another - can get this as therapy and as art and as microcosm and as representation, even if not in those particular words. They can get all this at the level of exploration from the level of the documentary. (Not perfect either, but good - althouth that's actually a side point.) It is the fact that they tried to sell this easier - and compromised - version.
I mean why even change the title Marwencol to Marwen: Is this how they think of us, the viewers? As if we are not able and/or willing to handle and extra syllable? That's what I mean.
But it didn't use that meta-layers that would justify this being made into a feature film. It leaves you not at an absolute worst bottom, but certainly noticeably complicit, or possibly feeling even "dirty" about this opportunistic approach. To remake a documentary about remaking a life of fiction following some real (documented) trauma. It could have been transcendent. Yet it is barely Ok as a film. Exploitation may be a word that comes up, but this may arguably apply - even if clearly to a much lesser extent - to Marwencol. But if you can't see the difference in scale bw a modest independent doc, to its reiteration (with much loss, IMHO, as I have probably made clear already) in a Hollywood version, from director to actors. It panders too much to the sort of viewer who "needs" to be spoonfed, even as most people actually don't need this... Any human who had had to grapple with trauma and/or reinvention - and who doesn't at some point or another, in some way or another - can get this as therapy and as art and as microcosm and as representation, even if not in those particular words. They can get all this at the level of exploration from the level of the documentary. (Not perfect either, but good - althouth that's actually a side point.) It is the fact that they tried to sell this easier - and compromised - version.
I mean why even change the title Marwencol to Marwen: Is this how they think of us, the viewers? As if we are not able and/or willing to handle and extra syllable? That's what I mean.
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