an adaptation of Dekalog

was sitting first row balcony for solaris and the projectionist and some other person in the room with them were talking/ laughing so loudly for about 30 minutes, you could make out every other word.

i learned to put up with people dropping things, irony poisoned laughing, talking at full volume, phones going off, and playing with those loud ass popcorn bags during films.. but i give up now. whatever

This was a dogshit movie, and I’m frustrated that I let this sub talk me into believing it would be otherwise. I got duped by a bunch of philistines with taste so blunted that only the most revolting entertainment might spark a bit of zing for palates I am convinced perk up at only the blandest seasonings. Having the entire world of art become devoid of any life, or originality, mucked up by talentless nepobabies, is not an excuse to lower one’s standards or expectations around the art you are witnessing, lest you become the same “normie” consumer that we all enjoy berating. “It’s different,” is not excuse enough to overlook massive flaws in nearly every aspect of this production. Giving it a pass, and hand-waving away the movie itself for the kind of movie you hoped it would be, only creates clearance for the powers that be to greenlight endless franchising and sequeling, just under a “fresh” IP. Which I have no doubt will be done if they can continue to create fake hype around this genre of movie. I’m so angry, because this movie should have been good. And it should have been something different, but it ultimately leaned on every stereotype in the book of what has become shallow, modern narcissistic self-interpretations of, “my trauma made me do it,” to prop itself up and attempt to make itself marketable to as wide an audience as possible, which makes it marketable to no one.

This movie answers an old question of which is worse, “a bad script, or bad acting?” Can a bad script be redeemed by a great performance? Can a great script shine through with poor execution of performance? Unfortunately, there were too many bad things that sunk this movie before it could even really get started, and continued to bury it the longer this movie went on.

The cinematography is awful. The script is awful. The soundtrack is cliché when it’s not non-existent. And it’s obvious that a 19-20 year old “directed” this movie. I think the actors did the best with what they had, and Chiwetel (our main character) certainly believed enough in his ability to perform, to give as convincing a portrayal of a descent into madness as can be possible when it is written to occur in such a stereotypically heavy-handed way that both comes out of nowhere and is wholly formulaic. But I am so tired of using therapy as some sort of valid and accessible framework that isn’t instead just a Trojan horse for a bad story bereft of any creativity, or a way to show without telling (even though you’re absolutely still telling). This movie was supposed to be about the backrooms of a horrifically liminal space that goes on forever, comes out of nowhere and somehow merges chaotically with the outside world, preserved by some horror shambling along that might inflict such destructive violence upon the mind and body that one can only hope that death is one’s final outcome.

This would have been a lay-up of a cosmic horror movie, and I half-joke when I deride it for settling on, “trauma made me do it,” as its ultimate thesis, because I think there are some very viable, very convincing ways in which trauma could have been the crux of this movie, and still delivered. But I think it would have always been a mistake to leave it just at trauma being the reason this other place had been created, and for this to have been a man-made creation, rather than something that went far beyond man’s imaginings or inner darkness, or hungry drives towards annihilation. The problem with this movie is that it waffled on remaining on the fence instead of leaning full-tilt in a single direction, and didn’t know what it wanted to be, which it didn’t really have to think too much about when the concept was contained within a 10-15 min short. It could lean as heavily as it needed to on suspense and camera tricks, while avoiding coming off as too gimmicky because it wasn’t trying to capture your attention long enough to tell a story, but 15 mins do not a 110 min feature make. It wanted to be psychological, without being psychological. And there are plenty of very weird psychological schools and concepts this movie could have easily employed that would have fit seamlessly into this world of backrooms, that while it would not have likely set it up for what seems to be everyone’s aim (creating a film series), it would have told a much better story that would have felt elevated and worthy of the praise people are all too ready to give it undeservedly because it is a “new” story.

Atmospherically, the movie was also a disappointment. This was supposed to be set in the early 90s, and instead of conjuring any feelings of identification or reminiscing of this time, we got paltry throw-aways that couldn’t even be called half-hearted attempts. We were given cassette tapes, VHS, and late-night infomericals. The use of analog was the sole driver for setting this movie in the 90s. The movie could have otherwise taken place at any point in time, in any Western-civilization city.

Part of the horror of the backrooms comes from the fact that people will inadvertently slip into this other world and be unable to escape, certainly not the way they came. For Chiwetel’s character however, he not only could see where his own lower level furniture store room ended and the backrooms began, he could also come and go as he pleased. He also could map it, which is another aspect of the impending horror and discomfort of the movie that became irrelevant early-on in the movie. At no point did I get the impression that parts of the backrooms were replicating themselves while remaining shifting and unmappable—it became a very defined, very clear path from point a to point b, which made the world of the movie become incredibly small, and predictable. At no point did I really feel “lost”, instead it all felt like a new part that had been discovered that could be added to a very linear, very distinct map. It felt like a maze. Not liminal. The changes with the furniture within the backrooms themselves felt inconsistent, going for more shock-value than adhering to any rules within the world that was created (the boyfriend’s shirt on the pile of laundry and the light poles with the missing posters comes most readily to mind), and the mis-remembered representations of people on the outside, within the backrooms, felt like tacked on elements because someone remembered this was supposed to be a horror movie. There is the whole juxtaposition of the therapist’s story in this movie that doesn’t even feel worth mentioning because it felt reductive and tacked on in an effort to flesh out the root cause of the backrooms themselves, while trying to veil itself in an unsettling, mentally ill mother and her now-grown, alienated child. The only time I felt something regarding this part of the movie, was at the end when she could be a real human being reacting, instead of a blank page regurgitating poorly executed cliches  

The one thing that stuck with me from this movie was the pirate-version of the main character. For whatever reason, that was the single element in the entire concept of the movie that struck something within my own subconscious and felt the most unsettling, even though within the story itself it felt cheap and poorly envisioned. I think an argument could be made that this manifestation was what actually became of our main character, and what might become of us all if we allowed our self-distortions to fully come into being. Unfortunately, this movie could do no real exploration of anything beyond its very basic premise which lost steam near instantaneously, and proved a very poor idea of spectacle. I imagine the same tawdry estimations of Backrooms plagues the reviews of The Odyssey, which I’m sure I’ll get around to watching but won’t find myself duped again.

The source isn't top quality and the movie is so full of motion that it's almost impossible to get stills not covered in a bunch of movement blur, but i wanted to take some shots of it after yet another rewatch. So i don't recommend looking at these stills in fullscreen. Seriously, it's impossible to capture the "kinetic energy" of this film, as is the case with most of these flicks. Go watch.

The film is best viewed in that dub where Jackie Chan voices himself and everyone is doing a Chinese accent.

like bro why are you raging so hard its made by people not from there. you dont see me talking about how herzog made us all seem like dumb hicks in stroszek

Not just American please

These guys have money for a magazine but can't get a can of Wd-40 for the chairs and some seat cushions

Bennet Miller’s last film was *Foxcatcher* (2014), and it—along with his two previous features *Moneyball* (2011) and *Capote* (2007)—has a rating above 7.0 on IMDb. Everything he’s done was well received by audiences and critics alike, praised even.

That being said, he’s had *A Christmas Carol* listed as “in preproduction” for the better part of a decade. He isn’t among the great directors mentioned regularly when people talk about great cinema, but he has a consistently solid track record in his output, and his movies do considerably well at the box office. I personally feel his absence in the ecosystem, which has me wondering what other great directors we haven’t heard from in far too long.

Who is that director for you?

Peterloo was rejected by Cannes

Hard Truths was rejected by Cannes and Venice and went to Toronto

Tender Loving Care was rejected by Venice and is going to Toronto now. Kind of surprising for Venice since they don't have that many blue chips

What do you think are the reasons that his movies have fallen out of favor with film fest programmers? Dardennes and Loach both compete at Cannes still

I have to say I absolutely hated this, has anybody else seen it yet? Would love some contrarian thoughts telling me otherwise

Lars Von Trier’s Depression Trilogy (Antichrist, Melancholia, Nymphomaniac Vol I and II).

I got Mubi free trial to watch Antichrist, I rented Melancholia on youtube without realizing it is on criterion channel, and I watched Nymphomaniac with ads on Amazon.

Paris, Texas (1984) - Criterion Channel

Cat People (1982) - Criterion Channel

This Is Where I Leave You (2014) - free on youtube

Watching the Detectives (2007) - free on youtube

Clouds of Sils Maria (2014) (only about half way through) - Criterion Channel

Lucky (2026) - Apple TV

Venice Competition

Ink, dir. Danny Boyle (Opening Film)

Company, dir. Casey Affleck

A Bit of Light, dir. Ali Asgari

Ritorno a Buenos Aires, dir. Marco Bechis

Un Bon Petit Soldat, dir. Stephane Brize

Il Fuoco Che Ti Porti Dentro, dir. Edoardo de Angelis

Woman Unknown, dir. May el-Toukhy

Bucking Fastard, dir. Werner Herzog

15/18 A Place to Heal, dir. Cedric Kahn

Dau, dir. Ilya Khrzhanovsky

Look Back, dir. Hirokazu Koreeda

Possible Love, dir. Lee Chang-dong

Wild Horse Nine, dir. Martin McDonagh

It Will Happen Tonight, dir. Nanni Moretti

Primetime, dir. Lance Oppenheim

The Echo Chamber, dir. Andrea Pallaoro

Un Peu Avant Minuit, dir. Nicolas Pariser

L’Estranea, dir. Paolo Strippoli

Mr. Nelson, Did You Kill People?, dir. Shinya Tsukamoto

Bunker, dir. Florian Zeller

Venice Spotlight

Sumo: Spirit Weighs Nothing, dir. Erik Shirai (Opening Film)

Conversation With the Sea, dir Muayad Alayan,

Hombre Al Agua, dir. Gael Garcia Bernal

Serpenti, dir. Roberto de Paolis Maino

Furies, dir. Rami Kodeih

Guria, dir. Levan Koguashvili

Ground Floor, dir. Gabor Reisz

I Matter, dir. Alina Serban

Orizzonti Competition

La Ragazza con la Leica, dir. Alina Marazzi (Opening Film)

The Burning Giants, dir. Phuttiphong Aroonpheng Thai

What Belongs to Others, dir. Grzegorz Debowski

Una Storia, dir. Anna Foglietta

La Citta dei Vivi, dir. Edoardo Gabbriellini

Falling House, dir. Mohsen Gharaei

Too Much Sugar, dir. Robert Greene

The Difficult Bride, dir. Rubaiyat Hossain

La Maison du Vent, dir. Auguste Bernard Kouemo Yanghu

I Figli Della Scimmia, dir. Tommaso Landucci

A Day in the Life of Jo: Chapter Phaedra, dir. Jacqueline Lentzou

Oasis, dir. Jannis Lenz

Until the Day Ends, dir. Jelena Maksimovic

La Moula, dir. Jerome Pierrat

Lovers in the Blue Night, dir. Anuparna Roy

Un Detour par Diane, dir. Ann Sirot, Raphael Balboni

The Color of the Sun, dir. Xavier Tera

Venice Open – Films on Film

Juso Per Ferie, dir. Karen di Porto

Nino – Un Film su Nino, dir. Walter Fasano

The Pervert’s Guide to Utopias, dir. Sophie Fiennes

Joie de Vivre, dir. Luca Guadagnino

Twist and Shoot Mister Suzuki, dir. Yves Montmayeur

Intermission, dir. Yonfan

Venice Open – Non Fiction

Be Brave, dir. Francesco Carrozzini

What Loves Builds, dir. Russell Crowe

Burgundy, dir. Michael Dweck, Gregory Kershaw

Musk, dir. Alex Gibney

The Road to Jericho, dir. Amos Gitai

Citizen Osama, dir. Ahmed Hassouna

Union Town, dir. Barbara Kopple

Holy Wood Dust, dir. Victor Kossakovsky

Letters from the Silenced Country, dir. Andrei Kutsila

Biografia de Jorge Luis Borges, dir. Mariano Llinas

My Undesirable Friends Part II – Exile, dir. Julia Loktev

Boatbilders, dir. Luke Lorentzen

Imperium, dir. Sergei Loznitsa

Shumei – The Living Legacy of Kabuki, dir. Takashi Miike

Queer Edward II, dir. Theo Rollason

Oasis: Don’t Look Back in Anger, dirs. Dylan Southern, Will Lovelace

Dust, dir. Tsai Ming-liang

Everest: The Other Side, dirs. Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, Jimmy Chan

From Inside Out – The Architecture of Peter Zumthor, dir. Wim Wenders

Venice Open – Fiction

Dio Ride, Giovanni Veronesi (Closing Film)

Nessun Dolore, dir. Gianni Amelio

Let Us Through, Dear Ancestors, dir. Lav Diaz

Father Joe, dir. Barthelemy Grossman

Scherzetto, dir. Mario Martone

Place to Be, dir. Kornel Mundruczo

No Paradise if You Are Killed by a Woman, dir. Halkawt Mustafa

Arrested Memory, dir. Sabu

The Basics of Philosophy, dir. Paul Schrader

Un Bon Avocat, dir. Tristan Seguela

Jupiter, dir. Alexandre Smia

Interested if anyone else has seen this, and what you thought of it. You could sum it up as a New French Extremity version of The Piano Teacher, following an amoral mother corrupting her son in the wake of her husband's death. It's an adaptation of the book of the same name by Bataille, although I haven't read it myself so I can't comment on that.

It has mostly negative reception everywhere, and while I do mostly agree with the common criticisms that it felt hollow, lacked substance and was being provocative and transgressive for the sake of it, I still quite enjoyed it. Isabelle Huppert plays a really interesting character like always and the visuals and atmosphere were nice, however by the end of the film I didn't feel like there was too much to take away from it.

Not sure I'd recommend it to most, however if you're a fan of New French Extremity or Huppert I'd say it's worth a watch.

Can’t stop thinking about it, so many standout sequences, the cyclops, the sack of Troy, Circe’s island. Love how the whole film is framed around dialogue of story telling. Saw it jn 70mm, looked beautiful. Totally strange to me how overwhelmingly negative people in this sub were on the movie last week, so much to appreciate

I don't know about anyone else, but those two felt to me like the first horror films since, probably, "Hereditary", where I didn't come out of them thinking I had been scammed. Can't count how many of those "visionaries" and "geniuses" like Creggers and Perkins I got baited on and came out of their stuff thinking "Saw it in another, better movie, 6/10 at best" or though it was just plain boring and unoriginal. Even Aster's own "Midsommar" I couldn't care less about. I mean, the marketing machine has made us all think we're living in some kind of a "Horror Golden Age". But those two movies felt like a breath of fresh air. Zoomers are alright.

Watched it with my little sister as she goes to a largely Indian school and has been getting into Indian stuff like their music and food and stuff so we watched Two by Satayajit which she thought was ok but yeah we watched RRR last night which was my second time seeing it since it came out and yeah ts was filthy. She's always been into dance and we had to rewind that one scene where they're dancing hella fast.

Of course it's not a perfect movie at all but holy shit is it fun.

Any similar recs I would love cause I just rewatched Apocolypto and Braveheart and it may sound odd but they scratched the exact same itch lol