Mike Figgis thinks he has something to say about life. He doesn't. It's that simple. A triumph of bloated, indulgent and affected style over zero substance, this film takes itself very seriously indeed. It is nothing more than a very, very long Calvin Klein commercial, and it's just chock-a-block with phony portent. I was actually embarrassed for Mr Figgis. It's painfully obvious he thought he was creating a masterpiece of art film, but his metaphors, juxtapositions, casting and editing choices were juvenile and grandiose and, therefore, ridiculous and laughable.
Possibly the worst use of Chopin to date.
And by the way, to the previous commenter from Seattle who thought they were being so smart and clever in dissing the person who used "cliched and hackneyed" in the same sentence.... actually, you shouldn't have been quite so proud of yourself. There is a distinction between the two, they are not one in the same; nor are they interchangeable.
In the Oxford English Dictionary, hackneyed is defined as "Trite, uninteresting or commonplace through familiarity or indiscriminate and frequent use." Cliche is defined as "A stereotyped expression, a hackneyed phrase or opinion, a stereotyped character, style, etc."
So you see, a cliche is a noun, a thing; hackneyed is an adjective, it's descriptive. So, one could decry the hackneyed symbolism of TLoSI while simultaneously finding its visual cliches contemptible.
Possibly the worst use of Chopin to date.
And by the way, to the previous commenter from Seattle who thought they were being so smart and clever in dissing the person who used "cliched and hackneyed" in the same sentence.... actually, you shouldn't have been quite so proud of yourself. There is a distinction between the two, they are not one in the same; nor are they interchangeable.
In the Oxford English Dictionary, hackneyed is defined as "Trite, uninteresting or commonplace through familiarity or indiscriminate and frequent use." Cliche is defined as "A stereotyped expression, a hackneyed phrase or opinion, a stereotyped character, style, etc."
So you see, a cliche is a noun, a thing; hackneyed is an adjective, it's descriptive. So, one could decry the hackneyed symbolism of TLoSI while simultaneously finding its visual cliches contemptible.