Jarmusch to the 10th power. Reminded me occasionally of Melville's Le Samourai. Only one person at the showing walked out, but this has to be one of the most patience-testing movies I've ever seen. It starts to look like it's leading to something, anything, that all your work will pay off, but then...no. An anti-thriller in every way possible. And yet somehow intriguing.
Bankole is one cool mofo, almost too cool. He never sleeps, hardly talks, and drinks lots of espresso (two shots, two separate cups). It's fascinating at first - the chain of events. He's given a pair of keys and an assigment (through some kind of code written on a tiny piece of paper that's been placed inside a matchbox)to go to Spain and wait at a hotel for 3 days until he gets the next signal. He waits at the cafe, walks around, goes to a museum, does tai-chi, waits at the cafe until the contact shows up. They discuss some aspect of art (for example Swinton talks about movies, Hitchcock's Lady of Shanghai, how movies become memories, etc.) or rather they talk and Bankole just listens. They exchange matchboxes, he reads the new code, eats the piece of paper, and returns to the hotel. Pretty cool so far, except this scenario is repeated about 10 times with the most minor of variations. The most interesting segment was when one of his contacts was a young woman who stays in his hotel room for several days and is inexplicably always completely naked.
Doyle doesn't disappoint with the visuals and once I got over trying to decipher plot and meaning, the film does have a very hypnotic, static beauty to the images. Almost like wandering through an art gallery - looking at paintings, at the architechture, at other people. There is some philosophy-lite, and apparent symbolism, but I couldn't really understand what any of it all meant. Something about painting, movies, music, dancing, and Bohemians being just as real as "real" life. Or that censorship is bad. Or maybe it was that all life is subjective experience, I don't know.
Purely an interesting visual experience that may work best on a second viewing.
Bankole is one cool mofo, almost too cool. He never sleeps, hardly talks, and drinks lots of espresso (two shots, two separate cups). It's fascinating at first - the chain of events. He's given a pair of keys and an assigment (through some kind of code written on a tiny piece of paper that's been placed inside a matchbox)to go to Spain and wait at a hotel for 3 days until he gets the next signal. He waits at the cafe, walks around, goes to a museum, does tai-chi, waits at the cafe until the contact shows up. They discuss some aspect of art (for example Swinton talks about movies, Hitchcock's Lady of Shanghai, how movies become memories, etc.) or rather they talk and Bankole just listens. They exchange matchboxes, he reads the new code, eats the piece of paper, and returns to the hotel. Pretty cool so far, except this scenario is repeated about 10 times with the most minor of variations. The most interesting segment was when one of his contacts was a young woman who stays in his hotel room for several days and is inexplicably always completely naked.
Doyle doesn't disappoint with the visuals and once I got over trying to decipher plot and meaning, the film does have a very hypnotic, static beauty to the images. Almost like wandering through an art gallery - looking at paintings, at the architechture, at other people. There is some philosophy-lite, and apparent symbolism, but I couldn't really understand what any of it all meant. Something about painting, movies, music, dancing, and Bohemians being just as real as "real" life. Or that censorship is bad. Or maybe it was that all life is subjective experience, I don't know.
Purely an interesting visual experience that may work best on a second viewing.
