Review: The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

Terrence McDonagh is a deranged, drug addicted cop, whose very life seems to be based on spiraling himself deeper and deeper into the reefer madness. He misuses his powers as policeman to steal drugs from the evidence room in the police station. He tortures wheelchair-bound old ladies for information. He "arrests" teen couples, takes their drugs, lets the girl preform sexual favors on him in exchange for his silence and then forces the boy to watch at gunpoint.


You have just been introduced to the hero of the movie. I remember thinking to myself: "Is this guy good or bad?". And then I remembered: "Wait, this is a Werner Herzog film. He doesn't do puny stuff like morality". And it shows: when McDonagh decides to kick the habit, his entire destructive life comes crashing down on him. It's not until he starts pumping anything slightly mind-altering he can find into his body again that everything (almost magically) works out. Some movies might not give a good example, but this one is not even trying. 


The movie is, as was to be expected, strange beyond belief. It's also shocking, vulgar and as amoral as movies get these days. Needless to say, I absolutely loved it. Weird as it might be, the movie is also screamingly funny. I rarely pause a movie because I am laughing so hard that I'm afraid I might miss something, but The Bad Lieutenant managed it. The scene in question involved Nicolas Cage acting opposite two imaginary iguanas. Yes, the iguanas of his imagination. 

These iguanas. They have to be my favorite iguanas ever.

Werner Herzog only seems to make fiction films about one type of person: the deranged man who nevertheless is very smart. Aguirre from The Wrath of God, Fitzcarraldo from the movie of the same name and now McDonagh all want to achieve... well, something. They definitely have the brains, the charisma and the guts for it, but are all hindered by being criminally insane. This very special kind of insanity is a staple of Herzog, and it's literally impossible to get if you've never seen one of his films.

You can take that as both a recommendation or a warning. This movie is made by two very gifted artists of whom it is almost a miracle they never worked together before: Werner Herzog and Nicolas Cage. Herzog directs like crazy (it might, in fact, just be my favorite movie of his), and Cage delivers one of the best performances of his life. You'll just have to wonder whether you are interested in watching them deliver a shot of pure madness into your spinal column. If that idea appeals to you in the slightest, consider this a huge recommendation. Everybody else: stay far, far away from this. Your brain might melt.

Alias


Is this song just a very bad joke? Yes. Apologies. But I, once again, couldn't help myself. Also, it IS a pretty tune.

The Verve - The Drugs Don't  Work
Geüpload door droogirico. - Muziek video's, interviews met artiesten, concerten en meer.

We All Go A Little Mad Sometimes

(This essay was published before on the website www.blikonline.nl)

Nerds zijn mensen die zich graag opwinden over dingen. Over slechte sequels, over mensen die Star Wars en Star Trek door elkaar halen en over alle meisjes die niet gecharmeerd zijn van hun verzameling zeldzame Pokemon. Maar waar ze zich nog wel het meest druk over maken zijn mensen die hun hobby “niet begrijpen”. Dus toen Roger Ebert, misschien wel de meest invloedrijke filmcriticus aller tijden, zich nogal sterk uitliet tegen videogames als kunstvorm brak de hel los. De fora stonden roodgloeiend van mensen die riepen dat Ebert te oud was, dat hij er niks van snapte en dat hij de elke voeling met de jongere generatie was verloren. En die reacties waren nog beleefd.

Maar de vraag “zijn games kunst?” is er een die al langere tijd speelt. De voorstanders argumenteren meestal dat als Warhol’s soepblikken kunst zijn, Shadow of the Colossus dit ook is. Tegenstanders zeggen vaak dat als de Mona Lisa kunst is, Gears of War dit niet is. De vraag is dus eerder “wat is kunst?” dan “zijn games kunst?”.

Maar eigenlijk is dit een vreemde discussie. Zijn “boeken” immers kunst? Zijn “schilderijen” dat? Nee, niet per definitie. Maar duidelijk wel als ze een bepaalde mate van artistieke kwaliteit hebben. Anders spreken we niet van literatuur maar van lectuur, en niet van kunst maar van broddelwerk. De vraag zou dan eigenlijk moeten zijn: zijn er games die als kunst kwalificeren? En het antwoord daarop: absoluut. Zelfs binnen de lange cultuurhistorische traditie.

Neem bijvoorbeeld het cultspel Psychonauts. Gemaakt in 2005 door Double Fine, en absoluut een aanrader. Wat dit spel zo bijzonder maakt is de opzet: de levels spelen zich af in de hoofden van de mensen om je heen. Met een klein deurtje dring je letterlijk hun hersenen binnen en zie je hoe ze nadenken. De eerste helft van het spel zijn dit je vrienden en leraren, maar de tweede helft van het spel moet je een gekkenhuis doorzoeken. En dus letterlijk de geesten van de bewoners binnendringen om ze van hun mentale problemen te verlossen. Freud zou er verzot op zijn.

De artistieke relevantie van dit spel is dat dit een absoluut unieke manier is om tegen het concept van waanzin aan te kijken. Dit idee is in de kunst vaak voorgekomen, en vele grote kunstenaars hebben zich eraan gewaagd. Om het te omschrijven zijn ongeveer 3 manieren gebruikt: het laten zien van de gek in zijn omgang met anderen (Psycho, Blue Velvet), het tonen van de gedachtewereld van de gek (De Schreeuw van Munch) en spreken vanuit het perspectief van de gek (de pedofiel in Lolita van Nabokov, de cynicus in Aantekeningen vanuit het Ondergrondse van Dostojevski).

Maar wat Psychonauts doet is een normaal persoon (de speler) mengen met de verstoorde gedachtewereld van de gek. Maar in de context van het spel is die gedachtewereld de harde werkelijkheid. Natuurlijk bevindt je je het in het hoofd van een paranoïde postbode, maar als je je niet aan zijn eigen verzonnen regels houdt ben je wel mooi Game Over.

Het level (en daarmee het onderbewuste) van deze postbode ziet eruit als een doodgewone Amerikaanse suburb: losstaande huisjes, witte hekjes, plastic flamingo’s en gigantische auto’s op de oprit. Wellicht is het zelfs iets te gewoon. Maar als je deze wereld binnenstapt merk je al snel dat er iets niet orde is. Overal zitten camera’s: in de brandblussers, in de vuilnisemmers, en zelfs in de plastic flamingo’s. Ook de bewoners van de wijk zijn opmerkelijk. Gekleed in lange regenjassen en gleufhoeden proberen deze geheim agenten zich voor te doen als gewone voorbijgangers. Zo staan ze bij een open riool met gootsteenontstoppers te zwaaien en roepen ze dingen als “Look at that woman’s breasts. They are large”.

Buiten het feit dat dit bijzonder grappig is, wordt hiermee ook een complete wereld geschapen waarin alle paranoia die degene wiens hoofd je bent binnengedrongen zich manifesteert. En binnen deze voorwaarden moet jij je een weg zien te banen. En hoewel de wereld om je heen misschien gek is geworden, ben jij toch echt degene die hier de afwijkende is.

Welcome to the madhouse.

Alias

The music today is presented by mr. Leonard Cohen, who wrote this from the perspective of a madman. A madman from the RAF, to be precise. Also, the song is AWESOME.

Pulling Rabbits: On Pixar

Let's get the facts straight here.

Fact 1: Pixar released their first film, Toy Story, in 1995. They made their second one (A Bugs Life) in 1998, and have since released a new movie almost every year (the only exceptions being 2000, 2002 and 2005). Besides this, they have released an impressive array of shorts.

Fact 2: With the exception of Cars, all of these movies and shorts are brilliant. Cars is just really good.

Fact 3: Pixar has managed to make some of the best sequels of all time.

Fact 4: This is one of the most impressive track records in the history of cinema.

Think about that for a moment.

What are you looking at?

Pixar has been around since the time I was four. Their movies have brought me endless joy as a kid, then endless joy as a teenager, and when I re-watch them there is just no denial that they are great movies. And I'm not alone in this: professional critics, who are very often three times my age, have lauded every Pixar movie in existence with praise. And that's not even to mention their great commercial successes.

How is this even possible? I have to confess that I don't know. I have some ideas, of course, but so does everyone else with any interest in movies. I have heard theories about their success ranging from their focus on storytelling to their emphasis on male leading parts. (Really. It's actually a pretty interesting idea, and the guy who wrote it down is one of my favorite critics, Moviebob. Check it out). But what personally has always impressed me the most is how many layers of meaning there are in these movies.

I can't really explain this without an example, so please watch the following scene from Toy Story:

What does a child see here? Buzz Lightyear is being overtly dramatic, and then falls for a very obvious joke. Oh, that silly Buzz! What do his parents see? Woody is openly mocking Buzz, but he is actually jealous  because he has been replaced as Andys favorite toy. Buzz, however, is still in the delusion that he is actually a spaceman, instead of just a toy. Drama! And what does a pretentious nerd like myself see here? Severe denial of their condition as toys by both characters. Buzz, of course, doesn't realize (or doesn't want to) realize why he exists, while Woody doesn't seem to grasp the true consequences of accepting this. If your purpose in life is to please a child, he will one day discard you. You will be mercilessly fired from your position. But is this a bad thing if you have served the purpose of your existence before that? And this is just what you can make out from a fragment of little over a minute.

Swoon

Pixar came into existence when the Disney empire started sucking (I.E. just after The Lion King was made) and have since made some of the best Disney movies ever. So it's not strange that they were purchased by said company in 2006. Disney itself has only made about 2 decent movies in the time that Pixar has been around (Fantasia 2000 and Brother Bear, to be exact), so I feel safe to say that the torch has been passed. A new generation of animators has risen, and if their previous work is any indicator we can expect some very, very exciting things. Walt Disney would be proud.

Alias

I love Randy Newman, Pixar loves Randy Newman, so here is a song by Randy Newman.

Pulling Rabbits: On Clint Eastwood

Clint Eastwood the actor will always be remembered as one of the great archetypes of American masculinity, along with the likes of Bruce Willis, Harrison Ford and John Wayne for an earlier generation (and Bruce Campbell for the nerds). His stoic turn as The Man With No Name in Sergio Leone's Dollars trilogy is just as legendary as Ennio Morricones music for those films, but he wasn't done after that: his legacy cemented itself with the more mainstream Dirty Harry movies, in which he growled one-liners like "Go ahead... make my day" in a way that no man could have done better. The stonefaced badasses he played have since then inspired many an actor, and he has become one of the more legendary male screen performers in the history of Hollywood.

Clint Eastwood the director, on the other hand, is a completely different and actually a lot more interesting story. Like most other actors who took up directing, he has starred in the majority of his movies kept playing the same characters as he has always been known for. But what sets Eastwood apart from people like Sylvester Stallone or Kiefer Sutherland (also notably manly men) is that he preceded to make drama movies that have the ability to make rocks cry.

Also, he can point at someone and say "pew pew" and still be fucking terrifying.

Eastwood himself, if a general impression can be had from his Wikipedia page, seems to be not unlike the characters he plays in his more recent films: hard, no-nonsense and not particularly content with the way things are going (he has said that he dislikes both Democratic and Republican politicians because they "spend too much money"). Yet in this rotten world, both he and his characters always seem to find something worth fighting for.

Eastwoods career as a director begun as early as 1971, but it wasn't until 1992 that his directing became as celebrated as his acting. In that year he made Unforgiven, which deconstructed the exact genre Eastwood made his career in: the Western. The archetypical gunslinger character in the movie tries to redeem himself, but in the end can't escape his past and returns to the drunken massacres of his early days. The "cowboy" might have been considered cool in his heyday, but now he was just a sad old man with a bad disposition and a shotgun.

But it seems that the older the man gets, the better his directing is getting. In the last ten years, he made Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby, Changeling and Gran Torino, which were all good to brilliant. And although I haven't seen them all, his other movies from the 2000 have gotten rave reviews as well. What these movies have in common is that the main character always seems to fight against systems that are seemingly impossibly to defeat. Be it becoming the boxing champion as a woman who is too poor and too old for it, be it rounding up a violent street gang in your eighties. And if any victory is achieved it is always at great personal cost, often even lives.

And with this, Eastwood seems to return to the human drama at its most fundamental: the Greek tragedy.  The classical tragic hero is always left devastated by the whims of the gods and their destiny. And in the same way, Eastwoods characters are in the end always defeated by the system they're up against. But Eastwood has one thing going for him that the Greeks didn't have: he understands what a bittersweet ending truly means. And I'm sure I am not the only one who might have shed a dignified tear at the end of one of his movies.

Alias

Can I think of any other old man who, despite looking more and more like an old potato, still keeps fighting the system and doing magnificent work in the process? Why, of course! Bob Dylan! Also, Scarlett Johansson stars in the following video, so I strongly urge you to watch.

Review: The Pianist

The Holocaust is without doubt the single worst thing the human race has ever devised. The systematic murder of six million Jews and many million more gypsies, homosexuals, communists, mentally handicapped and basically everyone the Nazi regime didn't like is such an absurdly tragic event that it still has the capability to bring people to tears.

And then Hollywood found out about this. Ever since Schindlers List (which is a great film) won an Oscar, there have been a slew of movies that have used one of the most horrible events in history as their setting, or more precisely: as their excuse. The absolute low point in this was The Reader, a wholly uninteresting love story served with a sauce of genocide to make it a little more edible. The Pianist, luckily, is one of the movies that manages to avoid the cliches and be beautiful and touching without rubbing in our face how in beautiful and touching it is.

The story of The Pianist is that of Władysław Szpilman, a real-life pianist who managed to survive the "purging" in the Jewish ghetto of Warsaw. Most of the time, this just means he tries to hide as good as he can, sometimes alone, sometimes with the aid of others. It's not a grand or epic story per se, but that is exactly what makes the movie work so well: its sense of understatement.

 Everybody who owned these things is dead. Think about that for a while.

Roman Polanski, who directed the movie and survived the Holocaust himself as a kid, deserves our eternal thanks for not making the movie sentimental. Szpilman isn't shown as some kind of saint, he is just one guy out of a million whose fortune was better then that of everyone around him. His motivation to survive isn't driven by some kind of moral purpose, he just wants to survive. That he is able to do so has more to do with a series of extremely lucky coincidences then with his strength of character. This makes both the person and the film much more complex and intriguing then if he was the kind of guardian angel that has flocked so many of the bad Holocaust movies.

A lot of this complexity is also due to Adrien Brody. How he dedicated himself to the role is amazing in itself, but what he eventually did with it is almost superhuman. Most of the film he is completely alone, but he still manages to fill the screen with this enormous presence. This is film acting in the way it was meant to be: communicating not with monologues, as stage actors do, but with subtle gestures and physical presence. Brody is the only American who ever won a Cesar award (the French oscars) for a single role, and rightly so. The movie is worth seeing for this stunning performance alone.

But what truly makes The Pianist such a great film is the realization that will hit you when the movie is done: that this story is just a single point of view, just a single story in a time and place that had too much going on to even tell. This humility is what makes The Pianist a truly stunning experience that you won't soon forget. Highly recommended.

Alias

The music of today was suggested to me by a girl who is a pianist herself.

Review: Blow-Up

In the early sixties, there were two subcultures that ruled the streets of Britain: rockers and mods. Rockers wore leather jackets and listened to Elvis. Mods wore tailored suits and listened to jazz. They were basically the hipsters of their time, and Blow-Up was their favorite film. They loved it because it was made by an Italian director who made "artsy" movies, because the soundtrack was made by Herbie Hancock and because the people in the movie are photographers who have casual sex and say things like "fab"! But watching it now, it is clear that the movie has not stood the test of time.

The basic story of Blow-Up is actually pretty damn interesting: a photographer makes pictures of a murder without realizing it. It's not until he enlarges the pictures that he sees what went down. Now that's what I call a premise. But the way the movie deals with it is weird and unbalanced. The whole picture-taking scene doesn't take place until about 40 minutes in, and when the movie draws to a close the story is pretty much cut off about 10 minutes before the end.

Then some mimes play tennis without a ball. End of the movie.

No, really.

Also, this happens. For some reason.

The strange thing about this film is that while it's full of random zaniness, it is almost completely joyless. Not once does the movie hit a truly light note, not even when the characters themselves seem to be having fun. The fact that the protagonist is a bona fide asshole doesn't really help either: he is cold, misogynistic and incredibly pretentious. The movie is really disengaging this way: we watch the people go about, but it's more like watching ants in an terrarium. We watch with some sort of morbid curiosity, hoping that something bad will happen. 

Okay, now I'm being overtly mean. The film is not a complete failure by any standards: the cinematography is pretty brilliant and the soundtrack kicks ass as well. Antonioni, the director, is known for both having never much going on and not making this boring to watch, and that is also the case here. And while it might not be a timeless movie, there is definitely some deeper meaning in the movie (although I don't know what it is). What is left is a strange souvenir from a long lost time, when girls wore the strangest dresses in history and movies were allowed to be bland because it was "new" and "artistic". Let's hope the hipsters will have better taste.

Alias

P.S. This movie also features one of the first appearances of Jane Birkin, the mother of Charlotte Gainsbourg. And of course she goes topless. I really wonder what that household looked like. The father was Serge Gainsbourg, in case you didn't know.

The music today is presented by Herbie Hancock who, as stated before, is awesome.

Review: Zombieland

For those who are just here to read the review, here it is:

Zombieland tells the story of a ragtag band of survivors who make a road trip though a post-zombieapocalypse America. The story has been told a million times, and Zombieland doesn't try to shake things up either. What it tries to do is deliver a good time, and it definitely works on that front (with an awesome cameo as a high point). And although it's a bit rough at the edges and pretty forgettable in the end, it's still a solid comedy for anyone who likes zombies.

Allright. Now if you bear with me for a moment, I would like to do a bit of movie analysis. You see, there is a movie that has an awful lot in common with Zombieland. You might in fact call it it's British counterpart. I am, of course, talking about Shaun of the Dead. And I just so happen to think that what differs in these movies is very telling for the moviemaking in the respective countries they were made in.
In other words, what can the differences in these movies tell us about the difference between British and American movies?

Even the damn posters look alike.

To start with the characters. Both movies have pretty much the same stereotypical characters in the lead roles: there's The Hero, The Sidekick, The Girl and The Innocent Character. But it's their personal quirks that give away their nationality. For example, The Hero in Zombieland is a neurotic nerd who is uncomfortable around women and thinks to much. He looks so much like Woody Allen it's almost uncanny. But while the hero might represent the more "artsy" side of American cinema, Woody Harrelson's character (The Sidekick) represents the more lowbrow variety. His Tallahassee is the kind of  powerhouse that has flocked American movies since Die Hard and Evil Dead II came out.

Compare this to Shaun and Ed. Shaun himself isn't much of a hero himself, but you would be hard pressed to find a sorer, less self-conscious loser then Ed in a movie. And this too is typical of contemporary British cinema. Shaun would fit in both a Richard Curtis (Notting Hill) and a Mike Leigh (Naked, Secrets and Lies) movie, while the chemistry between the duo isn't too different from that between the greatest British heroes ever: Wallace and Gromit. 

Something that's also telling is the way the story is put together. Shaun begins before the zombie invasion, while Zombieland takes place long after it. This allows Shaun to make jokes that revolve around Shaun and Eds boring, middle class life and how it is interrupted. The humor derives almost purely from the characters this way. This method of comedy has long been a staple of British humor, from The Office to Notting Hill. Zombieland, on the other hand, makes jokes mostly based on what the characters encounter. This style of comedy, in which set pieces are constantly thrown at the cast, is what made American shows like The Simpsons and South Park such a success.

And finally, it's worth noting that while both movies essentially revolve around getting from A to B, the B in question is radically different in both movies. In Shaun, the characters try to get to a pub: a place where you can unwind and discuss the world, girls and the like with your mates. In Zombieland, the place to go to is an amusement park: a place where there are flashy lights, adrenaline rushes and candy with enormous amounts of sugar in it.

Make of that what you want.

Alias

The music today is a song I really shouldn't like, but I can't help banging my head to a little every time I hear it.

Pulling Rabbits: On Billy Wilder

The top of the list of "greatest directors of all time" is usually comprised of the same few names: Alfred Hitchock, Orson Welles, Stanley Kubrick and Martin Scorcese. Some non-english directors usually make the list (Fellini, Bergman, Kurosawa and Eisenstein), but that's about it. Those are the guys whom people agree on are the best filmmakers ever. But to me, there appears to be one massive omission: Billy Wilder. Only the worst of filmnerds seem to have so much as heard of the man, let alone seen his movies. And in my humble opinion, this is a gross unjust to one of the most awesome filmmakers that ever lived.

And the thing is: I don't understand it. I can see why many people would not appreciate someone like Bergman, since he makes very slow-burning and meditative pictures. But that is not what Wilder did. He made comedies and thrillers, and very funny and very thrilling ones at that. Maybe the filmnerds shun him because his movies don't aim to be the highest of art, but that still doesn't explain much. This is a man who made some of the best pictures of all time, and it's time everybody realizes this.

Nobody might be perfect, but he got pretty damn close.

I will now list four reasons why you should remember the name of Billy Wilder.

1. Unlike most other "old" movies, Wilders movies are really fast-paced
I sometimes hear things along the lines of "old movies are boring". But when I am done murdering the person who said that, I always have to admit they do have a point. Movies nowadays move at a much faster pace then 50 years ago. This can make epics like Lawrence of Arabia quite tedious for people who are not used to that sort of thing. But the funny thing with Wilder is that his movies move at a pace that is perfectly fine for modern standards. His comedies, in particular, feature dialogues with so many jokes on both sides that it's sometimes hard to keep up. You almost forget you're watching a movie that is almost fifty years old. Which is exactly what cinema should be: timeless.

2. He wrote awesome scripts
Wilder was one of those directors who also (co)wrote most of his scripts. And the cool thing about Wilder is that he was both a good director and a good writer. There are not many people who can really say this: Woody Allen maybe, but not really many more people. He wrote dramatic stuff, he wrote funny stuff, but all with an enormous sense of cool. Here are some quotes from Some Like it Hot alone:

Sugar: Water polo? Isn't that terribly dangerous? 
Junior: I'll say. I had two ponies drowned under me. 


Sugar: I come from this musical family. My mother is a piano teacher and my father was a conductor.
Joe: Where did he conduct?
Sugar: On the Baltimore to Ohio. 


Sugar: Oh, Daphne, how can I ever repay you?
Jerry: Oh, I can think of a million things.
[Sugar gets into bed with him]
Jerry: And that's one of them! 


And these are just the jokes that don't require any context to be funny.

Also, this.

3. His movies has stood the test of time.
The funny thing about Billy Wilders themes is that they are as relevant now as ever. Some Like it Hot is about two men who dress up as women to hide from the maffia. Most of the jokes in the film are about the difference between men and women and pretending to be somebody you're not to get lucky. In the time of gay marriage-debates and Facebook this isn't too alien a subject for many people. The Apartment concerns the abuse of power in the workplace and extra-marital relationships, which in a time of economic depression and a higher divorce rate then ever might hit a lot closer to home then most modern movies. And Sunset Boulevard is about the paradox of stardom in Hollywood, and how we eagerly accept new stars yet brutally drop them when their time is done. Not much seems to have been learned in the meantime.

4. Three out of the four movies I have seen of his have a car chase in the first ten minutes.
You just can't argue with that.

Alias

This song is pretty much my definition of "sexy" as a positive.

Pulling Rabbits: On Darren Aronofsky

STYLE:

a : a distinctive manner of expression (as in writing or speech)

b : a distinctive manner or custom of behaving or conducting oneself

(source: Mariam-Webster online)

Georges Méliès was one of the pioneers of early filmmaking. He was a magician before picking up the camera, and much of his work is filled with very clever stage tricks. His most famous work, for example, revolves around a group of scientists being shot to the moon in an enormous bullet where they meet a gang of vicious moon-monkeys who explode when thrown to the ground (hey, it was 1902). And though his works might tell simple stories, he used his enormous creativity to constantly dazzle audiences. His tricks might not fool anyone nowadays, but his style is still effective in taking you on a journey.

And I think that is the same way Darren Aronofsky will be remembered 100 years from now.

Allright, let's back up a bit. Darren Aronofksy (1969) is an american filmmaker who has thus far made five feature films: Pi, Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain, The Wrestler and Black Swan, which isn't out yet. He is perhaps best know for his strange, esoteric style which sometimes seems to be more important then the story. Style over substance, some say. I... don't really say anything. My usual reaction to an Aronofsky film is stunned silence.

Wooooooooooh.

If you strip it down to the very minimum, Aronofsky basically tells the same story every time: someone has big plans that get ripped to shreds by things that have nothing to do with them, devastating them in the process. But just focussing on his stories would be a gross unjust to his art. Aronofsky's works can best be understood on a level that lies beyond simple storytelling: the emotional level.

Let's take Requiem for a Dream, for example. I admit without any shame that I cried at the end of that movie, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who was positively devastated by it. But just the story of the druggie going to hell is not something that I would normally consider all that affecting. Yet if you throw in the colors, the strange camerawork, the short and ultra-fast montages and Clint Mansell's haunting music, it becomes nigh unbearable.

Also, the eye. Oh my god, the Eye.

Style is usually something that conveys the mood of a scene and supports the narrative that way. But what Aronofsky seems to do is use the story as a frame to hang up his style. Not everyone may like that, but I know I certainly do.

Alias

P.S. Also, when the dude makes a movie, he doesn't shave his beard until it's done. That is just freaking awesome.

The music.... well, it can't trump the master, but it definitely hit me.