Wednesday, February 19, 2003

After months of anticipation and

After months of anticipation and weeks of planning, I finally saw the most interesting and complex film it’s been my pleasure to attend in years.  I should have expected to be confused when, after checking the showtimes two days in advance, we learned at the box office that, in the interim, the times had changed (there’s a song in there somewhere) and we’d missed the first 15 minutes of the film, in which the narrator becomes disoriented and winds up in the Hermitage in St Petersburg.  Not to worry - we caught up quickly and were soon just as bewildered as everybody else in the theater and in the film itself.  90 minutes, one continuous shot, 300 years of history, 2000 costumed dancers at the ball - my mind is still spinning.  Half the time I couldn’t tell who was speaking, or why.  Thank god for subtitles or I wouldn’t even have known what I was confused about.  For a film wherein the only breasts were painted by renaissance masters, and the only thing that exploded was the linear narrative style, this movie had some real production values.  It was beautiful, poignant, compelling, and a technical marvel more impressive to me by far than any effect-laden space-or-sea-or-superhero saga.  I’ll see it again.  The Ark rocks.