The good:
Everything about the film-making here is as good as it gets. The setting is re-imagined steampunk victorian London, and other gilded age (does that term apply in Europe?) cities. All of it very dashing art nouveau, very evocative of Gaudí. The art nouveau part was particularly well-placed I think, as it relates to the moral undertones of the story (see more below). Performances were great, especially from Emma Stone and Willem Defoe. The score was not particularly pleasant to listen to, but fit the movie very well. Pacing was good. Dialogue was engaging.
The bad: All of the male characters were either complete pushovers (Max McCandles) or possessive monsters (Duncan Wedderburn, Alfie Blessington)--with the exception of God himself. The core message of the movie is that fidelity is possession. Any of the characters expecting any kind of commitment from Bella were portrayed as singularly self-interested. To let Bella be free was to accept virtue into their lives. Now, this works in the context of the movie because Bella is not a real person--she needs nothing from nobody, she lives only off of her own will and ambition and delight in the world around her. The mechanic of her 'being her own mother' becomes an apt metaphor here, as she is emotionally beholden to no one and cannot understand why anyone would need to be. She does not desire to have children (and it's sort of implied that she cannot have any?). This is IMO not a realistic depiction of the human condition. Play this out for a second--is there really anyone in the world that needs nothing from anyone, ever? That is not how people work. Fidelity exists because at some point in your life, you will need to rely on someone else--and that person will only help you if you have shown them respect and helped them when they are down. It's very convenient that Bella is not born but rather made, as it's the only way this philosophy is actually workable and believable. The only problem is that the movie's creators clearly want you to apply their philosophy to human life as well. Bella is a cadaver, and to her, life is about experiencing things. But we are born, and life is about connections to the people around us. The worldview portrayed in this movie is great if you're an AI or a zombie or otherwise emotionally bereft, but for us humans, we should all be aware that this is not what living is.
(Just a quick note on the usage of Art nouveau--this seemed very fitting... I am not really knowledgeable about art history, but art nouveau seemed to me to be part of romanticism which is in tension with art deco and modernism. Art deco is positive--technological progress guiding humanity towards a more moral future. Romanticism is about the experience of nature and the sublime, which in this movie is just intercourse. The most I know about romanticism are the romantic poets. Many of whom had messed up interpersonal lives and died tragically at young ages. Quite fitting.)
The bad: All of the male characters were either complete pushovers (Max McCandles) or possessive monsters (Duncan Wedderburn, Alfie Blessington)--with the exception of God himself. The core message of the movie is that fidelity is possession. Any of the characters expecting any kind of commitment from Bella were portrayed as singularly self-interested. To let Bella be free was to accept virtue into their lives. Now, this works in the context of the movie because Bella is not a real person--she needs nothing from nobody, she lives only off of her own will and ambition and delight in the world around her. The mechanic of her 'being her own mother' becomes an apt metaphor here, as she is emotionally beholden to no one and cannot understand why anyone would need to be. She does not desire to have children (and it's sort of implied that she cannot have any?). This is IMO not a realistic depiction of the human condition. Play this out for a second--is there really anyone in the world that needs nothing from anyone, ever? That is not how people work. Fidelity exists because at some point in your life, you will need to rely on someone else--and that person will only help you if you have shown them respect and helped them when they are down. It's very convenient that Bella is not born but rather made, as it's the only way this philosophy is actually workable and believable. The only problem is that the movie's creators clearly want you to apply their philosophy to human life as well. Bella is a cadaver, and to her, life is about experiencing things. But we are born, and life is about connections to the people around us. The worldview portrayed in this movie is great if you're an AI or a zombie or otherwise emotionally bereft, but for us humans, we should all be aware that this is not what living is.
(Just a quick note on the usage of Art nouveau--this seemed very fitting... I am not really knowledgeable about art history, but art nouveau seemed to me to be part of romanticism which is in tension with art deco and modernism. Art deco is positive--technological progress guiding humanity towards a more moral future. Romanticism is about the experience of nature and the sublime, which in this movie is just intercourse. The most I know about romanticism are the romantic poets. Many of whom had messed up interpersonal lives and died tragically at young ages. Quite fitting.)
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