This film, technically and aesthetically stunning, is certainly successful in establishing a mood that is pervasive throughout the entire work. I imagine that Melville must have been pleased with the finished product but I do wonder how Cocteau felt about it.
My curiosity stems from the fact that the images of the written work were always successfully employed by the imagination to increasingly sinister effect. The siblings were basically two parts of the same being and their histrionics as well as their torture of each other felt as natural and unremarkable as a self-deprecatory comment made to oneself about some minor mistake. This histrionic nonchalance was missing from the movie. Watching the characters harass and chase each other around was a two dimensional representation of a dynamic that would, i think, have been far more successfully established by relying less upon running and screaming. Their games had an emotionally taxing impact upon those in their presence and this wasn't established too well either. Ultimately, I guess that most of these observations can be attributed to actor/observer effect, the difference between being a part of a story, as in a well written book, and watching a scene. I just found the characters to be somewhat laughable at times in the film and I imagine that had I've not read the book, the ending may have seemed excessive and self-indulgent.
I genuinely think that the creative realization of this work paid too much attention to the aesthetics/mood of place and not nearly enough to aesthetics/mood of dynamic. What results is a well-acted, aesthetically pleasing, character study of a few individuals that never really feel real. Melville is often guilty of this but for his subject matter, which is typically more plot driven, it works. The hustlers and lowlifes of the pulp era noir flicks aren't supposed to be accessible. Those films unfold like clockwork scenes performed by little tin wind-up thugs-- and its perfect, don't get me wrong. But the power of the 'two sides of the same coin', co-dependent siblings fable is the pervasive sense of dread that one feels as the dynamic starts to unravel; this is absent from this film. Nonetheless, I give this film seven stars for being a provocative work by two artists for whom I have a great deal of respect.
'Dead Ringers' is an example of the same fable that I thought was remarkably well realized. Of course it's nowhere near as good a movie from a technical standpoint.
My curiosity stems from the fact that the images of the written work were always successfully employed by the imagination to increasingly sinister effect. The siblings were basically two parts of the same being and their histrionics as well as their torture of each other felt as natural and unremarkable as a self-deprecatory comment made to oneself about some minor mistake. This histrionic nonchalance was missing from the movie. Watching the characters harass and chase each other around was a two dimensional representation of a dynamic that would, i think, have been far more successfully established by relying less upon running and screaming. Their games had an emotionally taxing impact upon those in their presence and this wasn't established too well either. Ultimately, I guess that most of these observations can be attributed to actor/observer effect, the difference between being a part of a story, as in a well written book, and watching a scene. I just found the characters to be somewhat laughable at times in the film and I imagine that had I've not read the book, the ending may have seemed excessive and self-indulgent.
I genuinely think that the creative realization of this work paid too much attention to the aesthetics/mood of place and not nearly enough to aesthetics/mood of dynamic. What results is a well-acted, aesthetically pleasing, character study of a few individuals that never really feel real. Melville is often guilty of this but for his subject matter, which is typically more plot driven, it works. The hustlers and lowlifes of the pulp era noir flicks aren't supposed to be accessible. Those films unfold like clockwork scenes performed by little tin wind-up thugs-- and its perfect, don't get me wrong. But the power of the 'two sides of the same coin', co-dependent siblings fable is the pervasive sense of dread that one feels as the dynamic starts to unravel; this is absent from this film. Nonetheless, I give this film seven stars for being a provocative work by two artists for whom I have a great deal of respect.
'Dead Ringers' is an example of the same fable that I thought was remarkably well realized. Of course it's nowhere near as good a movie from a technical standpoint.