If it wasn't for me seeing the description of this movie before hand I would have had no clue what was going on. Chariot started off strong posing some interesting questions "why has this guy had this dream 5000 times?" "Why is everyone so eccentric and strange?" As the movie progresses none of these questions are answered. Instead more and more questions are asked to cover up the fact that they didn't answer anything so far. Every question posed by an actual character in this film is frustratingly answered with an "I don't know". It's a movie about the nature of existence and reincarnation and yet when we finally have the doctor actually start explaining what's going on he says this "we don't know how it works or who made it but it just works. You die you're born and then you die". We don't know how it works or who made it should be the title of this movie. No direction, no cohesion, no vision. This is what you get when you say "I want to make a film about the afterlife" and don't put any thought into it whatsoever.
18 Reviews
Road to nowhere
aryanto17 April 2022
This chariot is a collection of clued together nothingness, John M is his normal boring self , don't know if this is a comic , horror or sci-fi ,it failed an all departments .Avoid if you have dishes to do or vacuum the house -it will be time better spent .
OK, i will review this film
digdog-785-71753812 February 2023
Warning: Spoilers
Just to be clear, this wasn't good. But it wasn't as horrible as the rating may make it seem - 3.5/10 at time of writing.
I will also have to spoiler this review, because there's no way to explain what's wrong with Chariot otherwise, but also this may help you understand what the film is about. You see ..
i watched this whole film and even by the end, could not tell what had happened. Now, that's something you *do not* want in your films.
This film is vaguely divided into 3 narrative segments.
In segment 1, we learn that the Protagonist has been having a recurring dream and wants to get rid of it. To do this and WIN(tm), he has come to the city to see a Doctor.
In this section we are explained that the Doctor represents the reliable narration, but The Treatment will only work if the Protagonist is careful about not falling prey to unreliable narration - e.g. The dream, and anything else that is part of his mental illness.
Think of "A Beautiful Mind".
The Protagonist moves to a hotel and he immediately meets reverse-Love-Interest Maria, and they immediately hook up(this is a acceptable scriptwriting technique).
In segment 2, we are shown the Protagonist witnessing some unreliable narration, e.g a man casually floating in midair. We have been told that this is Bad(tm) because it can cause The Treatment to fail.
But at the same time, Maria show to the Protagonist that these things are absolutely mundane and ok, and also we are again shown the Doctor under a different light, so much so that we question if now the Doctor represents the unreliable narration, and Maria represents WIN.
In the third segment the Protagonist chooses Maria instead of the Doctor, and as soon as he does he loses her.
He tries to find her again, but he is almost immediately captured by "The Government" or whatever other sinister entity is the hidden antagonist of this story, and the Protagonist is handed over to the Doctor, now looking completely deranged and clearly a representation of BAD.
And then the film waves the magic wand and everything ends.
The doctor, now fully coherent, reliable and espousing dialogue in full, explains to the Protagonist that, no, there is no Maria. And the Doctor means him no harm.
The protagonist was in fact dead, and in the process of being reincarnated, but he did love a Maria in a previous life, and the dream represented him not being able to let go. Now they fixed him, and he can be reincarnated and have a new full life. Happy Ending.
See, when i write it in this way, the script actually makes sense. And the production in general is very decent, with Malkovich being excellent once again at his job, and his upstanding and rigorous Doctor slowly morphing into a deranged hallucination, but the film doesn't try at all to explain any of this to us, the audience. It doesn't try to explain what the stakes are, what the protagonist wants, I mean, i'm not exactly dumb, and i had to come read other people's reviews to understand the film.
Also, while Malkovich is good, the other actors don't have enough presence to wanton repeat viewings.
My vote:5/10 - too clever for its own good.
I will also have to spoiler this review, because there's no way to explain what's wrong with Chariot otherwise, but also this may help you understand what the film is about. You see ..
i watched this whole film and even by the end, could not tell what had happened. Now, that's something you *do not* want in your films.
This film is vaguely divided into 3 narrative segments.
In segment 1, we learn that the Protagonist has been having a recurring dream and wants to get rid of it. To do this and WIN(tm), he has come to the city to see a Doctor.
In this section we are explained that the Doctor represents the reliable narration, but The Treatment will only work if the Protagonist is careful about not falling prey to unreliable narration - e.g. The dream, and anything else that is part of his mental illness.
Think of "A Beautiful Mind".
The Protagonist moves to a hotel and he immediately meets reverse-Love-Interest Maria, and they immediately hook up(this is a acceptable scriptwriting technique).
In segment 2, we are shown the Protagonist witnessing some unreliable narration, e.g a man casually floating in midair. We have been told that this is Bad(tm) because it can cause The Treatment to fail.
But at the same time, Maria show to the Protagonist that these things are absolutely mundane and ok, and also we are again shown the Doctor under a different light, so much so that we question if now the Doctor represents the unreliable narration, and Maria represents WIN.
In the third segment the Protagonist chooses Maria instead of the Doctor, and as soon as he does he loses her.
He tries to find her again, but he is almost immediately captured by "The Government" or whatever other sinister entity is the hidden antagonist of this story, and the Protagonist is handed over to the Doctor, now looking completely deranged and clearly a representation of BAD.
And then the film waves the magic wand and everything ends.
The doctor, now fully coherent, reliable and espousing dialogue in full, explains to the Protagonist that, no, there is no Maria. And the Doctor means him no harm.
The protagonist was in fact dead, and in the process of being reincarnated, but he did love a Maria in a previous life, and the dream represented him not being able to let go. Now they fixed him, and he can be reincarnated and have a new full life. Happy Ending.
See, when i write it in this way, the script actually makes sense. And the production in general is very decent, with Malkovich being excellent once again at his job, and his upstanding and rigorous Doctor slowly morphing into a deranged hallucination, but the film doesn't try at all to explain any of this to us, the audience. It doesn't try to explain what the stakes are, what the protagonist wants, I mean, i'm not exactly dumb, and i had to come read other people's reviews to understand the film.
Also, while Malkovich is good, the other actors don't have enough presence to wanton repeat viewings.
My vote:5/10 - too clever for its own good.
Absolute garbage, don't bother!
contactmaz16 April 2022
This film was a complete waste of time and a complete mess. What the flip was happening? Absolutely no idea and even the summary on imdb was totally unrelated. What the ... were the characters about? The was a complete mess and if you imagine a director going out on the streets of New York say, and scraping dog mess from the pavement, this is what was presented to us.
Don't bother with this drivel, you'll thank me!
Don't bother with this drivel, you'll thank me!
Such a terrible waste of time
carlos-pires17 April 2022
The plot boils down to a word: reincarnation. The script is just ballast to hold that word down.
There was more thought put into this review than into this childish waste of time of a movie, which not even the fairly capable cast could save.
There was more thought put into this review than into this childish waste of time of a movie, which not even the fairly capable cast could save.
I should have listened to the reviews.
johnlathrop20 April 2022
I should have listened to the reviews. The movie started out rather interesting. Disconnected events and a floating man in the apartment building lobby made me wait for a connection. The explanation of the floating man never came and the final story line was really rather simplistic and boring.
Try-hard Pretentious Ameuterish Surrealism
XE_Kilroy1 June 2022
Apart from just a couple of interesting scenes or moments, the entire film is a very pale attempt at surrealist cinema.
Surrealist or avant-garde films are a cool genre. But the problem with many of them is that they just think up weird nonsensical things to put in for the sake of being weird and cool. But the best surrealist films or directors always have a core sensibility to them, a story, a moral, a deep meaning, a connectedness, and either a beauty or terror to it -- eg, "8 1/2" or "Mulholland Drive".
This film tho is just a try-hard sophomoric effort. And the audience sees right thru it, as all the reviewers here have demonstrated. They're not fooled by it's absence of purpose and meaning.
Surrealist or avant-garde films are a cool genre. But the problem with many of them is that they just think up weird nonsensical things to put in for the sake of being weird and cool. But the best surrealist films or directors always have a core sensibility to them, a story, a moral, a deep meaning, a connectedness, and either a beauty or terror to it -- eg, "8 1/2" or "Mulholland Drive".
This film tho is just a try-hard sophomoric effort. And the audience sees right thru it, as all the reviewers here have demonstrated. They're not fooled by it's absence of purpose and meaning.
a little wired story
torchiam-192-63925230 April 2022
I think others' 1/10 is not totally fair. There are this kind of movies it just tells a little story, no start no ending. It is just a little piece happened somewhere in the corner of this world. It is not shawshank redemption or matrix, that you have a closure. Like looper 2012 or stay 2005, It is just a dream, it starts from nowhere and end up somewhere miles away.
If today is not important, and you are not sticked on you cellphone, grab a cup of drink, and maybe just enjoy this movie like a neighbor kid telling you a urban tale.
If today is not important, and you are not sticked on you cellphone, grab a cup of drink, and maybe just enjoy this movie like a neighbor kid telling you a urban tale.
Felt like it was written by a 16yr old after his first psychology class
dougmtoo19 May 2022
Honestly, one of the worst films I've ever witnessed. Any positive review of this film was obviously written by the director himself, or his mother
Felt like it was written by a 16yr old after his first psychology class.
How this hack of a writer/director ever got any actor to sign onto this project, let alone get financed is beyond comprehension! What has Malcovich done to deserve this! Has he been cancelled and this is the only job he can get? Rosa Salazar is the only performance that feels like she's an actual actor in this piece of garbage. This is a new cinematic low for the industry.
Felt like it was written by a 16yr old after his first psychology class.
How this hack of a writer/director ever got any actor to sign onto this project, let alone get financed is beyond comprehension! What has Malcovich done to deserve this! Has he been cancelled and this is the only job he can get? Rosa Salazar is the only performance that feels like she's an actual actor in this piece of garbage. This is a new cinematic low for the industry.
Unfathomable and way too pretentious!
johannes2000-128 December 2022
I consider myself as reasonably intelligent, but this movie went totally beyond me! Thanks to the titles of the various parts (chapters) I at least could gather that reincarnation should be the main theme, so somehow all the goings on had to be related to that. But to be honest, I nowhere in this movie came across even one single thing that seemed in any way to refer to reincarnation. When I force myself to look at it with a positive, or at least a well-meaning attitude, I could say that it's about dreams: either the psychological meaning of (recurrent) dreams, like forming a bridge to repressed memories from childhood; or even, in a more surrealistic way, comparing life itself to a dream. But reincarnation???
There are definitely interesting scenes, also visually, like the party where all these weird guests were gathered, or the masked woman singing on the rooftop, or the almost gothic scene of the surgical operation that took place in a deserted medieval tower. But unfortunately there were many more totally unfathomable scenes and actions that seemed to go nowhere, like the floating man, or the doubling of the persona of Rory (who or what Rory was stayed unclear anyway), or the "Help...!"-cries that came out of several different phones. Were these things maybe meant to be supernatural? Or was the whole movie one big dream??
It all went (I'm sorry to say) down the same dreary and pretentious drain. The pace is extremely slow, the dialogues are awkward, and the acting is unimpressive, except for Thomas Mann, but he couldn't save this project on his own. John Malkovich sure didn't help, with his (as so often) blatant over-acting.
There are definitely interesting scenes, also visually, like the party where all these weird guests were gathered, or the masked woman singing on the rooftop, or the almost gothic scene of the surgical operation that took place in a deserted medieval tower. But unfortunately there were many more totally unfathomable scenes and actions that seemed to go nowhere, like the floating man, or the doubling of the persona of Rory (who or what Rory was stayed unclear anyway), or the "Help...!"-cries that came out of several different phones. Were these things maybe meant to be supernatural? Or was the whole movie one big dream??
It all went (I'm sorry to say) down the same dreary and pretentious drain. The pace is extremely slow, the dialogues are awkward, and the acting is unimpressive, except for Thomas Mann, but he couldn't save this project on his own. John Malkovich sure didn't help, with his (as so often) blatant over-acting.
Arthouse meets stranger things
vandoornmt25 April 2022
More art than movie, superb acting, script and cinematography convey in delineated scenes a mysterious and sumptuous movie buff experience. It seems, some viewers have varying success at joining the dots...causing some frustration. I found it thoroughly enjoyable, I would recommend a glass of port and a cigar as suitable accoutrements.
Not science fiction, more like metaphysical fiction
savindwales16 April 2022
A man retains a memory of an old life and cannot let it go. A doctor tries to figure out why the memory is persistent. The man continues his existence, unaware of his changed condition and trying to understand his new surroundings.
The story is told with dream logic. It paints mundane concepts on top of an unknowable in-between existence, and drops hints about the characters without telling too much. Is the man's bare room a reflection of who he was before? Is the woman's nicely decorated apartment a reflection of her previous existence?
The doctor's resolution to the man's problem is to burn the memories. He severs the man's ties to his old life, but the cycle continues anew in a different form.
This is one of the better movies I have seen this year and I look forward to more from the writer and director. The cast is also top-notch. The marketing team dropped the ball.
The story is told with dream logic. It paints mundane concepts on top of an unknowable in-between existence, and drops hints about the characters without telling too much. Is the man's bare room a reflection of who he was before? Is the woman's nicely decorated apartment a reflection of her previous existence?
The doctor's resolution to the man's problem is to burn the memories. He severs the man's ties to his old life, but the cycle continues anew in a different form.
This is one of the better movies I have seen this year and I look forward to more from the writer and director. The cast is also top-notch. The marketing team dropped the ball.
Waste of space. Simple riddle too.
optwoodau14 November 2023
Well that was dull. Someone really fed the bull a lot of laxatives to get this script out. I assume the recognizable actors were either lied to or under some form of contract, because this movie can only harm their careers.
Just, don't watch this. You are better off having a nap.
Btw, each traveller pays nine coins. Total twenty-seven coins. Bellhop keeps two of the coins. Total twenty-five coins to pay for the room, not twenty-nine as Johnny M stated. Manager originally received thirty coins, then returned five coins. Total twenty five coins for the room. 25=25. WTF are you talking about a missing coin?
Just, don't watch this. You are better off having a nap.
Btw, each traveller pays nine coins. Total twenty-seven coins. Bellhop keeps two of the coins. Total twenty-five coins to pay for the room, not twenty-nine as Johnny M stated. Manager originally received thirty coins, then returned five coins. Total twenty five coins for the room. 25=25. WTF are you talking about a missing coin?
Vacant
mike-c-b22 July 2023
There's passive-aggressive, then there's vacant passive-aggressive.
Every character acts the same no matter what is happening.
During most of the film, acting is vacant and passive. Later in the film they become vacant and angry.
Complete disregard for anyone watching. You can't relate to anything happening. You don't want to be friends with zombified characters and be along for the ride. There's no human factor or appreciation of. There's no good guys v bad guys. There's no entriguing story. No scenery / holiday factor. No interesting engineering / design. No sci-fi / fantasy beyond the cover image.
Why sell this?
Every character acts the same no matter what is happening.
During most of the film, acting is vacant and passive. Later in the film they become vacant and angry.
Complete disregard for anyone watching. You can't relate to anything happening. You don't want to be friends with zombified characters and be along for the ride. There's no human factor or appreciation of. There's no good guys v bad guys. There's no entriguing story. No scenery / holiday factor. No interesting engineering / design. No sci-fi / fantasy beyond the cover image.
Why sell this?
Not as bad as people rated it
Curious_Reviewer16 May 2022
Warning: Spoilers
This movie is based on reincarnation which is obviously with each chapter telling the stage of reincarnation.
There are several at reincarnation station. Dr. Karn and the elephant mask connects to Hinduism from which this movie is inspired. Karn was the name of a warrior that lived during the time of God Krishna and Elephant mask connects to God Ganesh who is the first deity to be worshipped on any auspicious occasion as per Hindu texts.
Dr. Karn seem to be given the task of resetting the memory of died people who somehow remembers their past life. So this guy Harrison remembers his past life which is represented in the form of a dream. Even Dr. Karn doesn't know who set up this system as he said near the end of this movie.
I am not saying it is a masterpiece, however I liked it more than Mulholland drive and Pulp fiction which everyone praises. This one was actually entertained me unlike those two I mentioned.
There were many problems in the plot and screenplay though, like who was Rory, why there were two of him. Why he was there at all? Why Maria went to him then called Harrison saying help me. Director should have clearly it a little by the end or released a director's cut including some scenes to explain. Same issues I have had with pretentiously deep movies like pulp fiction who don't have a central theme or story going on. I have no issue with complex movies, I loved Tenet. It was convoluted too but it was enjoyable. Chariot was good but could have been great with a little clarity in the storytelling.
There are several at reincarnation station. Dr. Karn and the elephant mask connects to Hinduism from which this movie is inspired. Karn was the name of a warrior that lived during the time of God Krishna and Elephant mask connects to God Ganesh who is the first deity to be worshipped on any auspicious occasion as per Hindu texts.
Dr. Karn seem to be given the task of resetting the memory of died people who somehow remembers their past life. So this guy Harrison remembers his past life which is represented in the form of a dream. Even Dr. Karn doesn't know who set up this system as he said near the end of this movie.
I am not saying it is a masterpiece, however I liked it more than Mulholland drive and Pulp fiction which everyone praises. This one was actually entertained me unlike those two I mentioned.
There were many problems in the plot and screenplay though, like who was Rory, why there were two of him. Why he was there at all? Why Maria went to him then called Harrison saying help me. Director should have clearly it a little by the end or released a director's cut including some scenes to explain. Same issues I have had with pretentiously deep movies like pulp fiction who don't have a central theme or story going on. I have no issue with complex movies, I loved Tenet. It was convoluted too but it was enjoyable. Chariot was good but could have been great with a little clarity in the storytelling.
Plot points all start in the 2nd half and don't wrap up
ImdbAllowsLeftwingExtemistBots28 April 2022
Warning: Spoilers
Terrible acting from malkovich and lots of wtf decisions with things like the red wig.
Some pointless but interesting parts of the plot never get closed off. Why are their phone calls, why is she desperate to get out of somewhere?
Why is there a 2nd Rory and how what has it got to do with his existence??
What are the elephant masks for??? What is happening in the end scene?
Despite an intriguing start, a poor end. It maybe deserves an even lower score but I didn't actually switch this off before the end like so many modern disasters.
Some pointless but interesting parts of the plot never get closed off. Why are their phone calls, why is she desperate to get out of somewhere?
Why is there a 2nd Rory and how what has it got to do with his existence??
What are the elephant masks for??? What is happening in the end scene?
Despite an intriguing start, a poor end. It maybe deserves an even lower score but I didn't actually switch this off before the end like so many modern disasters.
Well this movie was f. by marketing
G-Lange23 April 2022
I saw this movie on a whim, knowing nothing more than the title. Well it is truly a masterpiece! Rarely was I so thrilled, so refreshed at each new scene, so thoroughly puzzled.
Now why on earth did they market it as some generic sci-fi flic?? This has absolutely nothing to do with it, it is deliberately an arthouse or new Wave movie. It reminded me of a Lynch movie, or of Last Year in Marienbad.
Oh and the acting and cinematography are top notch.
So I loved it to bits!!!
And I'm sad it gets panned everywhere, and angry against that vile dishonest marketing.
Now why on earth did they market it as some generic sci-fi flic?? This has absolutely nothing to do with it, it is deliberately an arthouse or new Wave movie. It reminded me of a Lynch movie, or of Last Year in Marienbad.
Oh and the acting and cinematography are top notch.
So I loved it to bits!!!
And I'm sad it gets panned everywhere, and angry against that vile dishonest marketing.
A nice David Lynch style film
maxpower17123 April 2022
Warning: Spoilers
Well, I thought this movie was good. Yes, it was ambiguous and yes, it was not entirely clear what happened in the end, but that was part of its charm. Individual scenes were compelling and delightfully creepy. Like a David Lynch movie it had the elements of not completely making sense but just enough to feel you have a grasp.
See also
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