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ben-telford
Reviews
Gankutsu-ô (2004)
Potentially an excellent interpretation of Dumás, but ultimately a catasprophic let down.
With Dumas' Count of Monté Christo being one of my all time favourite reads, I have always been curious about an adaptation to the screen that does it justice. The majority of films cannot cut it for me; because of time constraints, all but the main subplot and are stripped out, killing the magic of Dumas' work. As a full series, Gankutsuou promised to maintain the complex sub-plots and philosophical musings of a man's highly elaborate, ten year quest for revenge.
Gankutsuou, for the most part does maintain the diverse and complex plot, like I had hoped, and I was not at all fazed by the futuristic setting or the Vampiric references that the anime added. What did bother me greatly however was the significant choice of protagonist and the rashly altered ending. Instead of using a character as rich and subtle as the Count to be the lead, the viewer is forced to see the events from a comparatively minor character, Albert, whom I found particularly frustrating. Albert is a particularly thick, naive and whiny cretin who follows the mysterious Count around like a bad smell. The plot is significantly changed (for the worse) so as to accommodate Albert, climaxing in a particularly soporific and corny ending.
The animation Style is perhaps unique in its appearance, with some kind of inventive layering technique. It is all very vibrant, if somewhat harsh on the eyes, but I enjoyed its application. The actual drawing itself however looks poor whilst some of the CGI elements stick out like a sore thumb. Another complaint would be the opening theme, which is by far the worst I have ever heard. Compared to the smorgasborg of lousy Anime tunes out there, this is quite some feat, which is strange because the rest of the anime's soundtrack is excellent, with it's eclectic combinations of Opera and techno.
Gankutsuou was a wasted opportunity, which although often true to the source material, ultimately does the novel little justice.
Requiem for a Dream (2006)
So repetitive a film that it is mind numbing.
I for one couldn't stand it. Firstly its concept was far too obvious: We know drugs are bad, do we need to be shown that they are bad? Of course, but do it in an interesting way. I'd like to compare this film to an anti drug film i much prefer called "SPUN". SPUN is an independent film which for much of the time is a graphic and crude comedy, which depicts the lives meta-amphetamine addicts. This comedy might seem to glamorise the drug influx (in a similar way to FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS), however it serves to perfectly to lull you into a false sense of security, as you are greeted with the vastly contrasting final scene of depression . RFAD is a perpetual onslaught of harsh imagery that increased in intensity towards the end. This slow crescendo of grotesque got on my nerves, and I found myself growing apathetic to what was going on. By the end, I was mostly disinterested with the characters, which is tragically the reverse of what the film was trying to achieve.
As well as the continuous decline into doom for the protagonists, I was annoyed by the sheer amount of times the main theme (REQUIEM FOR A DREAM) was played. The tune is vastly long and exceptionally repetitive in it's own way, without it being played on what seemed like a continuous loop through out the film. It was doing my head in. There was some good editing, such as the fast fire montage thing, they show whenever a character imbibes some more drugs. Unfortunately, I had already seen a very similar thing used in SPUN a week before, so I was bored by that too.
In short, I found the film so monotonous and repetitive that I hated it. I'm not suggesting that monotony in itself is a bad thing, and can be used to make some great films (see IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE) however when I am presented with the same obvious messages time and time again, in such a draining way, I find myself having to take as many bathroom breaks as possible to try and bring some variety to the show.