After reading the reports and hype about this movie, I knew I had to see it.
I'm glad I did, because the mise en scène of the entire story is so evocative of the 1940s and 1950s, I felt almost transported to those long-gone days, especially with the 4:3 ratio which formed all of my viewing space in those days.
That all said, the movie is still somewhat disappointing. The love story is just not sufficiently interesting for me to develop any real liking of the main characters; I really did not care about either of them. The episodic nature of the narrative is somewhat jarring, and marred by relatively long cuts to a black screen before the next 'episode' begins. And the story of an on-again, off-again romance is, well, just ordinary to the point of banality, almost.
On the plus side, the acting is, by and large, excellent. Camera work is up to par - despite my above comment about long cuts. The local music is interesting, to a point; background music quite fitting. Overall, the director Pawlikowski did a good job. This is the second movie of his I've seen, the first being Ida (2013) which I admire much more.
Overall, I'm happy to say I'm glad I did see this movie, to the extent of recommending it for adults, despite its flaws for me. But which allows for only a five out of ten as my rating.
I'm glad I did, because the mise en scène of the entire story is so evocative of the 1940s and 1950s, I felt almost transported to those long-gone days, especially with the 4:3 ratio which formed all of my viewing space in those days.
That all said, the movie is still somewhat disappointing. The love story is just not sufficiently interesting for me to develop any real liking of the main characters; I really did not care about either of them. The episodic nature of the narrative is somewhat jarring, and marred by relatively long cuts to a black screen before the next 'episode' begins. And the story of an on-again, off-again romance is, well, just ordinary to the point of banality, almost.
On the plus side, the acting is, by and large, excellent. Camera work is up to par - despite my above comment about long cuts. The local music is interesting, to a point; background music quite fitting. Overall, the director Pawlikowski did a good job. This is the second movie of his I've seen, the first being Ida (2013) which I admire much more.
Overall, I'm happy to say I'm glad I did see this movie, to the extent of recommending it for adults, despite its flaws for me. But which allows for only a five out of ten as my rating.