| Unique, slow, atmospheric, and moody |
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| written by larbeck |
August 18, 2003 - 6:14 PM PDT |
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3 out of 3 members found this review helpful
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It took several years for this 1972 French film to make it to my home Dallas. It was the first foreign film with subtitles that I ever saw and that was a theater known for "adults" films. Seeing it now, it is a wonder what the fuss was about. Slow and atmospheric, it will disappoint those who crave action.
There are many more languages than French in the film and not all of the dialogue of the indigenous peoples is subtitled - but them the characters could not understand them as well. There are many scenes between the Westerners and the indigenous people that do not seem scripted at all. There is a feast and three pigs are killed for this feast. This film has *not* been endorsed by the SPCA. Such is life.
The Pink Floyd soundtrack is quite buried in the mono mix - you would do better to seek there album, "Obscured by Clouds", if it is Floyd you seek.
But as a parable of idealism vs. materialism, it excels. We have a French woman, wife of a diplomat, on a search for illegal feathers of endangered birds in New Guinea. She meet a cadre of freaks who inhirited a little money and are on a trek to one of the last unexplored areas, high in the mountains, marked obscured by clouds by the last map made by an aerial survey. They are convinced it hides Paradise. On this trek, they meet and try to connect with the indigeous people - people unspoiled by the ways of the captialist West.
This film is nothing like I have seen before or have seen since. It will not answer all of your questions but it will make you ask them. If you are a Republican, it will just bore you to tears and put you to sleep.
I love it.
It is a spase DVD - with no extras, a single mono audio track and subtitles. It is letterboxed and the source film is not prefect. Then neither is life.
I still love it. |
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