With the Wife. It is
still playing in the City, at the last stop Art House Cinema, the Opera on Van Ness.
And it is going to take a few days for me to get my head wrapped around this thing. And I am still ambivalent about the ending.
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| Do you think Marcus Mumford is jealous? |
I had warned Renee that the film is extremely, gruesomely violent. It is. Renee did not like the violence, at all, and I blanched a fair bit, too. Still, we talked about the film for a very long time after we saw it. And Renee obviously liked the film, in spite of the blood, knives, and guns. I liked it, too. There are a lot of things to like: The composed set-ups early in the film, many w/ no dialogue; the elliptical eschewing of period; the phenomenal 80s synth-band soundtrack; the apartment and apartment hallway sets; the opening get-away sequence; Ryan Gosling's silent noble samurai performance; Bryan Cranston; Carey Mulligan; the driving scenes, of course; the "picnic" scene; the whole picture dripping with style; the desperate nerve-wracking intensity, in which I was literally glued to my seat, not daring to move; the silk jacket; the use of slow motion, so often abused and mishandled in other films; Blanche; the lengthy kiss in the elevator; and I could still prob go on.
This film is
so heavy on style, that I would not be surprised that if in a few years (or few
months) the film looks completely
weird and dated. I could even see myself making a complete about face sometime in the future, hating this film. It is up in the air, and I will be thinking about Drive a lot the next few days.
Kisses,
Ardent
