I'm honestly puzzled at what people find good in this film. I haven't read a single positive review that actually says anything other than "groundbreaking", "a watershed" and other overworked clichés. I would really like someone to tell me what, precisely, they think is so good about it. Maybe I'm missing something, or am just not interested in whatever-it-is.
I can't even see that it was exciting in 1959.
The biggest thing wrong with it is this: the characters are two-dimensional. You get no real sense of them as people. Even their nominal professions (he an architect, she an actor) get no depth. The scenes where she's supposedly on the 'set' of her 'movie' were laughable. In short, I didn't care about what happened to them. As it turns out, more-or-less nothing does.
One thing that was totally true-to-life was their interminable "let's have one more night"/"let's never see each other again"/"let's be together forever" to-ing and fro-ing over their third or fourth or fifteenth beer. Yes, just as tedious and shallow as the real thing: playing this Saturday night at any convenient bar in your town.
I can't recall a movie I've enjoyed less.
I kept waiting for something - anything - to happen. It didn't. All we get is a few more flashbacks to the sketchy 'what I did during the war' back-story. Everything is superficial. None of it was interesting or insightful.
The friends I saw it with (at a screening at the NSW Art Gallery) all agreed. We've worked out a code to escape in the future. If you're giving this movie a try, I recommend you do the same and spare yourself the tedium.
I can't even see that it was exciting in 1959.
The biggest thing wrong with it is this: the characters are two-dimensional. You get no real sense of them as people. Even their nominal professions (he an architect, she an actor) get no depth. The scenes where she's supposedly on the 'set' of her 'movie' were laughable. In short, I didn't care about what happened to them. As it turns out, more-or-less nothing does.
One thing that was totally true-to-life was their interminable "let's have one more night"/"let's never see each other again"/"let's be together forever" to-ing and fro-ing over their third or fourth or fifteenth beer. Yes, just as tedious and shallow as the real thing: playing this Saturday night at any convenient bar in your town.
I can't recall a movie I've enjoyed less.
I kept waiting for something - anything - to happen. It didn't. All we get is a few more flashbacks to the sketchy 'what I did during the war' back-story. Everything is superficial. None of it was interesting or insightful.
The friends I saw it with (at a screening at the NSW Art Gallery) all agreed. We've worked out a code to escape in the future. If you're giving this movie a try, I recommend you do the same and spare yourself the tedium.