Conversation

Notices

1. Embed this notice
   clacke (clacke@libranet.de)'s status on Sunday, 20-Oct-2024 22:12:32 JST clacke

   We watched #TheSubstance. It is ... not subtle. 😃

   This review is spoiler-free.

   If you wanted to make this movie, it is perfect. Every aspect is extraordinary. Every acting performance, every visual, every beat, every mood, every little thing in every scene is perfect. The only criticism you could have against this movie is that you didn't want this movie.

   In case you didn't get the message, it turns it up a notch. And then again. And then again, until at some point, and which point will depend on the person, you will either have to laugh in self-defense, or you will have to leave the room, depending on how strong your stomach is. The alleged dark humor is never haha humor.

   • Embed this notice
     clacke (clacke@libranet.de)'s status on Sunday, 20-Oct-2024 23:37:08 JST clacke

     in reply to

     From the very start, it uses a combination of beauty and disgust, where it has many scenes using the visual language of beauty, sexiness and attraction, but in a context that makes it never be alluring, just vulnerable and depressing, or perhaps it will make some viewers excited and disgusted with themselves for being excited.

     Also from the start, it has a visual style of focusing on the grotesque details of everyday situations, but it stays a plausible speculative "what if we introduced this one premise" fiction until probably a bit before the two-hour mark, at which point it could have ended and it would still have been an evocative and sharp critique of the beauty and entertainment industry. Curtain. Applause. Brilliant movie.

   • Embed this notice
     clacke (clacke@libranet.de)'s status on Sunday, 20-Oct-2024 23:37:14 JST clacke

     in reply to

     Would it have been a better movie if it just concluded before the two-hour mark?

     Maybe! Certainly for some viewers. But that's not the movie they wanted to make. 😃

   • Embed this notice
     clacke (clacke@libranet.de)'s status on Sunday, 20-Oct-2024 23:37:15 JST clacke

     in reply to

     But in case you haven't yet realised how horrible and grotesque the beauty and entertainment industry is, it finally removes all plausibility safety rails, takes it up yet another notch and becomes a different movie, surreal and bizarre, that I'm sure was extremely satisfying to make, and probably accounts for half the budget if you don't count Demi Moore's salary. 😃

     Nobody leaves the room unaffected.

     The ending is complete. Everything has gone full circle, every Chekov's gun has been fired, and it is all very sad and unsatisfying, but also satisfying.

     Not everyone will like it for sure, but if this doesn't take a whole bunch of Oscars, then I really don't know anything about the Oscars.

   • Embed this notice
     clacke (clacke@libranet.de)'s status on Sunday, 20-Oct-2024 23:37:31 JST clacke

     in reply to

     As usual, don't watch the trailer, it reveals far too much of the story.

     #TheSubstance

   • Embed this notice
     clacke (clacke@libranet.de)'s status on Monday, 21-Oct-2024 14:48:48 JST clacke

     in reply to

     Fargeat on influences:

     "Definitely The Fly (1986), The Shining (1980), The Thing (1982), every kind of genre film - also Paul Verhoeven - that went the full way, because that's really what I love to watch. When I was growing up it was really my way to get a sensation of freedom and to experience things. I've always seen in genre films a way to be excessive and to release some kind of craziness and energy that you don't get to have in your everyday life."

     Yeah, she definitely wasn't going to make any other movie than the one she made. 😁

   • Embed this notice
     clacke (clacke@libranet.de)'s status on Monday, 21-Oct-2024 14:48:49 JST clacke

     in reply to

     As I was watching the movie, in the end I was thinking that it felt a bit like a revenge fantasy a la Inglorious Basterds.

     Coincidentally, or maybe not at all, Qualley has been in a Tarantino movie, and Fargeat's previous big movie was "Revenge" (2017).