The Tulse Luper Suitcases: The Moab Story is a difficult film to review, I watched it and I have no idea what it was supposed to be about. The story as far as it goes at face value...actually I don't even know that. This film makes Mulholland drive look simplistic. I actually wonder if Greenaway has made a film to impress his peers rather than hook any sort of cinema going audience. The indoor sets look more like a stage play than a film and when you add slightly over the top acting it does feel sometimes like you are watching a sixth form drama class rather than a meaningful film. Indeed the characters are so weak it needs other characters doing voiceovers while appearing in boxes at the bottom of the screen to push the story along and explain what is happening.
The plot is far far too complex- I challenge anyone to list what was in the Luper suitcases in order after the film. It's impossible. And this and some other aspects of the film do come over like an episode of the 1980s BBC series "The hitchhikers guide to the galaxy" only without the humour. Or anything else that made hitchhikers good for that matter.
And then we come onto the vaunted film-making techniques the film uses. Well some of it is clever- I liked the guy stuck in the lost property office, but then again some of it's just annoying- in some scenes characters repeat their lines over and over for effect. Also I'm no prude but there was too much full frontal nudity in this film. It just got dull.
Greenaway should be praised for trying something new, and on this scale, but he has ended up making one of the most uncommercial movies ever, and that is not a complement. I have no desire to see parts 2 or 3, and I doubt many other people who watch this will either. I give The Tulse Luper Suitcases part 1: The Moab Story 3/10 and I feel that is slightly generous.
The plot is far far too complex- I challenge anyone to list what was in the Luper suitcases in order after the film. It's impossible. And this and some other aspects of the film do come over like an episode of the 1980s BBC series "The hitchhikers guide to the galaxy" only without the humour. Or anything else that made hitchhikers good for that matter.
And then we come onto the vaunted film-making techniques the film uses. Well some of it is clever- I liked the guy stuck in the lost property office, but then again some of it's just annoying- in some scenes characters repeat their lines over and over for effect. Also I'm no prude but there was too much full frontal nudity in this film. It just got dull.
Greenaway should be praised for trying something new, and on this scale, but he has ended up making one of the most uncommercial movies ever, and that is not a complement. I have no desire to see parts 2 or 3, and I doubt many other people who watch this will either. I give The Tulse Luper Suitcases part 1: The Moab Story 3/10 and I feel that is slightly generous.