The LoSI may have been my favourite movie from 1999. To help set the scene for that comment, my favourite movie from 1998 may have been The Thin Red Line. It seems that movies that I love generally split the audience into two groups. Those that lose interest or are disgusted, and those that find these manifestations of the possibilities offered by film making exciting.
I enjoy films that are told through cliche as much as the next person. High production values, non-innovative camera work, predictable characterizations (even within complex plot lines) are fun. But I also like to see the breadth of cinema challenged. Occasionally, films are able to appeal to both the audiences that want familiar story telling methods, and those that want to be challenged. It's great when that happens, but both the LoSI and the TRL have failed to do this for a significant portion of the audience (blue vs red America?).
Some of the best parts of LoSI have to do with capturing moments that distill those things that we share. For example, the fumbling teenage living room scene hit some parts of the give and take of early sexual experience perfectly. A frustrated car ride captures family dyamics, and the everyday moments of getting along/by better than any other film I've seen. A distant viewing of domesticity (including putting a child to bed and love making over chopped vegetables) through a window precisely underscore more cliches of everyday living that are cliches because they happen to us. Perhaps because these scenes don't inform a simple story narrative, they fail to hold the interest of those looking for escape FROM life (again, as everyday lived). But I'm not looking for that. I'm looking for a celebration of identity, and those things that create it, and I am willing to work my way through what is, I think, essentially a character piece.
This movie does, I think, a very good job of giving us, in two hours, a short examination of the develpment of one character's sexuality. How that development is a loss of sexual innocence, and how this loss ties in to larger ideas in our society (adam and eve), is something that I have both an academic (reflective) and an aesthetic (less relfective) interest in. As such, this movie appeals to me.
It won't appeal to everyone. I think that a good way to judge whether you should see this movie or not is if you _LOVED_ Saving Private Ryan and _HATED_ The Thin Red Line. If so, do NOT see this movie. If you liked both, or liked only the thin red line, you'll probably be more interested in watch LoSI.
The audience probably splits similarly in regards to the Figgis Filmography. Much of his early (mass market) work appeals to the first set (but not exclusively). His later work, the second (exclusively).
I enjoy films that are told through cliche as much as the next person. High production values, non-innovative camera work, predictable characterizations (even within complex plot lines) are fun. But I also like to see the breadth of cinema challenged. Occasionally, films are able to appeal to both the audiences that want familiar story telling methods, and those that want to be challenged. It's great when that happens, but both the LoSI and the TRL have failed to do this for a significant portion of the audience (blue vs red America?).
Some of the best parts of LoSI have to do with capturing moments that distill those things that we share. For example, the fumbling teenage living room scene hit some parts of the give and take of early sexual experience perfectly. A frustrated car ride captures family dyamics, and the everyday moments of getting along/by better than any other film I've seen. A distant viewing of domesticity (including putting a child to bed and love making over chopped vegetables) through a window precisely underscore more cliches of everyday living that are cliches because they happen to us. Perhaps because these scenes don't inform a simple story narrative, they fail to hold the interest of those looking for escape FROM life (again, as everyday lived). But I'm not looking for that. I'm looking for a celebration of identity, and those things that create it, and I am willing to work my way through what is, I think, essentially a character piece.
This movie does, I think, a very good job of giving us, in two hours, a short examination of the develpment of one character's sexuality. How that development is a loss of sexual innocence, and how this loss ties in to larger ideas in our society (adam and eve), is something that I have both an academic (reflective) and an aesthetic (less relfective) interest in. As such, this movie appeals to me.
It won't appeal to everyone. I think that a good way to judge whether you should see this movie or not is if you _LOVED_ Saving Private Ryan and _HATED_ The Thin Red Line. If so, do NOT see this movie. If you liked both, or liked only the thin red line, you'll probably be more interested in watch LoSI.
The audience probably splits similarly in regards to the Figgis Filmography. Much of his early (mass market) work appeals to the first set (but not exclusively). His later work, the second (exclusively).