Reviews

Let me start like this... As the film evolved, the narrative spread and deepened and the character of this so-called anti-hero attained its definitive characteristics, I made a melancholy thought... What's all this about if I know where it's going to end up? No surprises here... even if you're a Batman-lover, if that's the case, the narrative doesn't add anything new... The mentally disturbed man ends up in an 'expected' slaughterer with all the evidence and specifications of millions before him and after him. In a sense, if he is not to become what he finally was to become, we don't even have a movie. The only surprise is Joaquin Phoenix, the Joker. This man gave everything, soul, body, morphations, sounds, glances, gestures... Everything... and built, let's say crafted a 'mental figure' that is complete, dark and morbidly sympathetic and shocking. The archetype is not, but he is. The film suffers in many ways, especially in its rhythm that I personally found unduly slow. It was not necessary. The rhythm of the hero itself was slow enough. I note something else I consider important when I see a movie. Phoenix's face is a place and a world. The face of all of us is the sacred geography of incarnation but for the actor it is a gift and an evil legacy at the same time. It means you're a prisoner of your own face. Well, this man has a very interesting face. Strong, aggressive and... polymorphic. Every corner differs, every turn of the head is... that's it... It's a surprise... Beyond that... i don't know... I think nobody can dive deeper... there is no further depth... that's my point of view anyway...

This is an excellent movie. Especially Peter Kurth's acting is simply sensational! Decent, i believe, the performances of the others. But, what we have here is a complete universe. And the protagonist is that universe. Without reaching the limits of melodrama, Kurth Peter manages to perform up to the ultimate detail all stages of his terrifying paralysis. This is not easy and we have not seen it many times with such success. The Director adequately unfolds the escalating intensity and the drama and you simply cannot remain unaffected. A movie uneasy but worth to watch!

A friend of mine used to say that on horror movies, thriller, etc, the secret is to... fear before actually get scared ... meaning that if the director has managed the most difficult of all, i.e. to be ready for a touch on the shoulder that would shake from the chair, everything else is simpler ... and I say more, fun and entertainment in this dark, moist and suffocating universe is born from the toxicity of the ' greenhouse ' with the ' morbidly plants ' ... and, I think, the French know the way maybe because they invented it... the whole shock is not limited to the terrifyingly vulgar or the blatant repulsive ... it goes deeper, soaks you, makes you feel ... insecure ... I think this is the most astonishing and rare that very few craftsmen succeeded in film history... the viewer feels the dorsal shiver constantly and even every time that is thinking back on the movie ... No matter how many years go by ... Let's not be exaggerated ... this movie conquers no such specific tops... What I believe it leaves is not creepy or shivery but more a. .. bitter breeze ... a taste of brackish water on lips ... something from ... elsewhere ... that strives to become familiar ...

...and not 'Nixon and Elvis' or something like that. Let's keep this in mind... and let us not hurry to express strong protest about Michael Shannon: But this man is not Elvis! He is not talking like him, he is not walking like him, he is not even singing! If we want to find the ideal Elvis, one ride in Vegas is enough to have a dozen. Here we have the man behind the fringe, and the sideburns. The man with the divine voice and southern gentle accent flooded with hyper-patriotic feelings and worries! 1970 expires and Elvis watches television from his luxurious mansion and resents! These Communists will eventually f... everything up! And drugs have been rotting the minds of young people! Go crap! Something we must do. Rather, something I have to do myself! Country is in desperate need! And I, the King will offer my service! But who should I contact? The King cannot be conversing with the inferiors. The King should come into contact with the Boss... and where is the Boss? In the White House of course! But will the President accept me? Will he be available for me? Silly question... For a moment I forgot that I am the King... and who can deny anything to a crowned?

THE OUTLINE IS OLD, WELL-KNOWN AND... beloved. The eternal dipole. Male and female, the two initial poles, and among them a potential difference that creates the necessary energetic environment for everything to be born. The ancient game that nobody knows when it started but it is certain that it will never finish. Power play, submission, pleasure. A continuous flow of sexual energy, bridges built and crushed with a nod, a breath, a word, a moment of denial or a decision to throw anyone into the arms of Infinity ... with any costs, with any consequences. Cinema has always loved these schemes, these games, especially between the mentors and the schoolgirls, the gripping milfs and the coward, puzzled, 'enchanting' adolescent, the 'next door' teenagers... And the truth is that these movies, as simplistic or ' primitive ' are - as no one seeks psychological depths in the analyses of characters, nor complex internal routes- have always been watched with pleasure. And sometimes even with awe! Beyond any structural failures, the movie has its virtues. The main, to me at last, is that the aim is not to convict the somatic or sexual pleasures. The film leaves a light aroma despite its rather dramatic background. And if it's worth to be watched is because of this exact feeling that leaves at the end. If someone expects more in another, more ... kinky area ... well he should search for other movies, made by much more sophisticated filmmakers that were based on literary masterpieces and filmed in seasons where sex had conquered much greater levels of exculpation... socially and philosophically.

The human condition truly looks with a garden ... for some it is green, dense and majestic ... for others poor and dying, or abandoned and messy ; for some completely nonexistent ... Yet all the features from the early days did not change, not cancelled ... they're just waiting for you ... the allegory that takes care of the mental determinants of life is ahead of you, every day, every moment ... you don't have to be an expert, you learn ... There is no need to have born connoisseur, you train yourself ... you are not required to be gifted, you blossom ... all talents you had but could not sense them ... all the colors, smells, shapes ... you need the light of the meeting with yourself, the other, the Whole ... After all, if you don't recognize the beauty in your own inner bio-cosmos, with what right you blame the ugliness of others?

It is a fact. All the elements that constitute the body are the raw material also for the symbol. Of course it the psyche interfered... the well-known psychoanalytic obstacle... but even if a chaotic hyper-set such as an entire country is involved, if the past failed to get transformed into a symbol easily and correctly then, the dead return... the constant self-psychoanalytic engineering does not help anyone anymore... you cannot exceed the past just by gazing the future... the dead reject the rest unless they have been restored... in a proper, well-adjusted way... for those who lost the chance to become heroes, that manner is always complicated, enigmatic and mysterious... no one actually is aware of it... perhaps only time... yes, time only... Time which restores the injustices of the living towards the dead... even if that seems graphic, almost poetic... because vanity cannot be restored... it can only be remembered... with the fluidity of the blood... the firmness of the mind... mostly, the sanctity of the body...

In this corner of being it is raining constantly ... watering the soil, watering the stones, the fallen statues, the dead people ... and not quenching thirst nor cooling anyone ... because there was never a soul to find rest and dew in hell... And this is Hades... And what mortal ever dared a descent into the dark palaces unarmed? Hands do not separate from the bodies of the living ... only reached out desperately in the drunk by blood sky of hell ... a hell of water, Horror and Memories... This is a Descent that knows no way of return... not without sacrifice the black bull ... not without wear the look of the Vast ... This is a Descent that does not forgive the ignorance to the uninitiated ... This is not a visit to the land of the dead, is a deep initiation into the actual otherworldly in partaking of Nothing... ... This is not a murder of another mission that gone insane... It is the Mission of meeting with you... just in another Place, just with a different Way ... The Horror... The last word of the Demon the threshold ... brother who waited forever ... yourself in the Kingdom of shadow ... The Horror ... The last word of Ultimate ... The first you will take with you when you come back ... If you return ... If you dare to return ...

I've been surprised by Jeff Daniels! I think this is the best series I've seen for several years. A powerful, compact, atmospheric, integrated Western with solid interpretations and well balanced between lyricism and tough action. I am mostly astonished by the presence of Jeff Daniels among a cast of excellent actors. They all stand on a high level. But his presence is truly iconic. Mr. Jeff Daniels i salute you!