Chippy
KJ's Leading Pundit
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 4:45 pm Posts: 63026 Location: Tonight... YOU!
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Song to Song
Quote: Song to Song is a 2017 American experimental romantic musical drama film written and directed by Terrence Malick, starring an ensemble cast including Ryan Gosling, Rooney Mara, Michael Fassbender and Natalie Portman.
After a lengthy post-production period of at least over three years, the film had its world premiere at South by Southwest on March 10, 2017, and was released in the United States on March 17, 2017 by Broad Green Pictures. Critical reception for the film has thus far been mixed[1].
_________________trixster wrote: shut the fuck up zwackerm, you're out of your fucking element trixster wrote: chippy is correct
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David
Pure Phase
Joined: Tue Feb 15, 2005 7:33 am Posts: 34865 Location: Maryland
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Re: Song to Song
Another bad latter-day Terrence Malick film. I hate to say it because his first five films are incredible, particularly The Thin Red Line and The New World, but this joins Knight of Cups as his iconic career's nadir. Perhaps I am on the wrong wavelength. Perhaps the emperor has no clothes. I am not sure.
This film has a fairly banal "story" (insofar as it has a story) with fairly archetypal characters: two idealistic, pure-of-heart musicians (Ryan Gosling, Rooney Mara) fall in and out of love in Austin, Texas, while simultaneously drifting in and out of the luxurious and poisonous sphere of a powerful record executive, played by Michael Fassbender. (Read: success is bad, evil, if it involves "selling out" or prideful ambition in any capacity, particularly for women.) Natalie Portman has a fairly significant role as a waitress the aforementioned executive finds in a diner and seduces, and a few other famous faces, including Cate Blanchett and Holly Hunter, are briefly glimpsed, too.
It is hard to hold on to the arc of the plot because the 130-minute final product, primarily shot in the summer and fall of 2012, is so obviously assembled from improvised, disparate elements in post-production, barely strung together by extremely heavy use of ponderous voice-over (highlight: "Come, save me from my bad heart!"). These photogenic lovers seem to have a sparsely decorated mansion or apartment for every mood. There is no point in wondering where they are or why. A scene 45 minutes in could be moved forward 20 minutes without alteration. There is no way to invest in the characters (to hope they find joy, to despair when their lives fall apart) because everything is so ethereal, so vague. It is hard to remember who is together, who is feuding with whom, etc. I am not sure the film remembers at times.
The widely publicized on-location shooting at several Texas music festivals was ultimately a waste of time because music hardly figures into the overall experience beyond vague references to record deals and songwriting credits, as well as a few cameos by, among others, Patti Smith and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Malick has zero interest in electronic music or pop music or hardcore or any musical culture or scene, and there are no close-to-complete performances by bands...just shots of sweating, thronging crowds set to either classical musical or assorted whispers.
A degree of credit is owed to Fassbender, whose performance as a type of show-business Mephistopheles has a certain magnetic, virile charm. There are a few points where his charisma and intensity cut through the nonsense, and he has a sexy physical chemistry with Portman. Everyone else, as talented as they are in any other film and as fetching as they appear twirling and flirting, is betrayed by the haphazard nature of the film's completion; they fall short of creating authentic characters.
D
_________________1. The Lost City of Z - 2. A Cure for Wellness - 3. Phantom Thread - 4. T2 Trainspotting - 5. Detroit - 6. Good Time - 7. The Beguiled - 8. The Florida Project - 9. Logan and 10. Molly's Game
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