Warning: some minor spoilers ahead!
This movie is high cinematic art, but it requires a fine sensibility to enjoy. Beineix creates a dreamworld, with the sublime and frightening emotions of dreams, and that characteristic dreamlike fluctuation of the plot, where you can expect anything in the next moment, good or bad. And indeed, it ends up in a nightmare, and you wake up asking yourself why was it a nightmare, why did all of it happen the way it did, and ultimately, what is the purpose of life and the meaning of existence.
All the actors, in my opinion, did an excellent job, quite aware, I guess, of the lofty artistic goals Beineix tries to achieve. All the roles are perfectly believable, because they are not reduced to simpletons as Hollywood often does, but are provided with all the contrasting emotions, weaknesses and strenghts, virtues and vice of real human beings.
This movie won't be appreciated by everybody, because it wasn't intended for everybody, just as Mahler's symphonies are not appreciated by everybody. Fortunately, there are the pleasant tunes of Strauss to satisfy the public at large.
This movie is high cinematic art, but it requires a fine sensibility to enjoy. Beineix creates a dreamworld, with the sublime and frightening emotions of dreams, and that characteristic dreamlike fluctuation of the plot, where you can expect anything in the next moment, good or bad. And indeed, it ends up in a nightmare, and you wake up asking yourself why was it a nightmare, why did all of it happen the way it did, and ultimately, what is the purpose of life and the meaning of existence.
All the actors, in my opinion, did an excellent job, quite aware, I guess, of the lofty artistic goals Beineix tries to achieve. All the roles are perfectly believable, because they are not reduced to simpletons as Hollywood often does, but are provided with all the contrasting emotions, weaknesses and strenghts, virtues and vice of real human beings.
This movie won't be appreciated by everybody, because it wasn't intended for everybody, just as Mahler's symphonies are not appreciated by everybody. Fortunately, there are the pleasant tunes of Strauss to satisfy the public at large.