I have to say this film is very striking and impressive for me.
The most note-worthy feature is the amazing soundtrack. There are so many layers of sound, so much fear, boldness, insanity and hatred in the sound that it can be so frightening to listen. I feel the filmmaker's effort to impact on audiences' senses with music and noises.
The mise-en-scene is so bleak as to the extent of scary or even gruesome. The intentional production of black and white creates such a feeling of horror and the film milieu is fraught with imminent danger and violence. The leading actor's performance is imbued with trauma, torture, extreme desire and brutality. His sheer silence can be either a preference of the director or his own choice of portraying the ultimately cruel and dangerous monster with a harmless and care- needing look.
As far as I observe, negative opinions mainly come from the intentional black-and-white representation (in order to be "stylish") and the arguably "poor performance" of the leading actor. On the contrary, I reckon the lack of colour adds up to the whole bleak and Gothic thrill, or at least avoid upsetting spectators with the crime scene, like Hitchcock's choice of making Psycho black and white. I agree the film plot does not have a big twist or is as mind-burning as Christopher Nolan's, but simply calling the film "boring" due to the particular representation and acting is untenable. In a nutshell, I would recommend the film, especially for the sound.
The most note-worthy feature is the amazing soundtrack. There are so many layers of sound, so much fear, boldness, insanity and hatred in the sound that it can be so frightening to listen. I feel the filmmaker's effort to impact on audiences' senses with music and noises.
The mise-en-scene is so bleak as to the extent of scary or even gruesome. The intentional production of black and white creates such a feeling of horror and the film milieu is fraught with imminent danger and violence. The leading actor's performance is imbued with trauma, torture, extreme desire and brutality. His sheer silence can be either a preference of the director or his own choice of portraying the ultimately cruel and dangerous monster with a harmless and care- needing look.
As far as I observe, negative opinions mainly come from the intentional black-and-white representation (in order to be "stylish") and the arguably "poor performance" of the leading actor. On the contrary, I reckon the lack of colour adds up to the whole bleak and Gothic thrill, or at least avoid upsetting spectators with the crime scene, like Hitchcock's choice of making Psycho black and white. I agree the film plot does not have a big twist or is as mind-burning as Christopher Nolan's, but simply calling the film "boring" due to the particular representation and acting is untenable. In a nutshell, I would recommend the film, especially for the sound.