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Post by mortimer605 on Mar 22, 2017 2:51:34 GMT
Letterboxd.
5/5
How could I have known seeing Patti Smith at Beach Goth 2016 would so perfectly preface the next year's best film?
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3/5
The musicianship is superb, but the songs needed work.
While the film has great and interesting themes, fantastic performances and great direction but fails with characterization and a connection to its audience.
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5/5
You can't give me a Terrence Malick film no matter how many shaky cam shots, wide angles, or seemingly random clips and voiceovers with some of my favorite actors (Mara, Fassbender, and Blanchett in her short blip of a storyline) and not expect me to love it. It's definitely not a perfect 5/5. But I have to give it that because images, sounds, movements, scenes, places, and overall just so many things within this film are deeply beautiful and mesmerizing. This is touching, confusing, wild, strange, tender, intimate, nostalgic, heartbreaking, but transporting and incredible.
I loved this more after a second viewing and it's likely that's due to the fact that I went to see it by myself and gave more of myself to it. I'm HIGHLY biased here and only write serious reviews when I really love something or really hate it. I mean if I get to look at Rooney Mara for the majority of the 2 hours and 25 mins. this lasts, I'm not going to complain. I can always find something I love within a Malick film, even if I don't like the whole of the film and it's kind of like that with this - me loving parts of it - but I enjoyed it a lot.
I don't think I'd say this is better than The Tree of Life as that remains one of my top films of all time, but if they're not equal, then Song to Song is a close second.
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5/5
This movie is sexy as hell in every way.
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4/5
It's a shame that Almodovar already claimed the title High Heels.
I'm a lot happier than I expected to be that the world now has a Terrance Malick directed movie that opens with a slow motion mosh pit set to Die Antwoord. Heels, glass and water reign supreme. Austin is home to the most beautiful people. Michael Fassbender refers to honey as God.
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2/5
I desperately want Terrence Malick to release his footage to the world. It seems like such a waste that he's capturing dozens of hours of beautiful, famous people improvising and hanging out with each other in exotic settings, then using maybe five seconds of that footage for an impressionistic glimpse of a brief event in passing. Song To Song is so much like Knight Of Cups that it could be an unbroken continuation from that film, nominally moving the action to Austin instead of Los Angeles, and bringing in a new batch of disaffected pretty people who speak abstractly and poetically in wall-to-wall voiceover about their emotions. And like Knight Of Cups, it's numbingly tedious once it reaches the point where it's clear that there isn't really going to be much of a story. This film has a few concrete plot points, but they're presented with such hazy details and such a fuzzy timeline that it's hard to grasp them as anything but further abstract drivers for the bottomless well of emotion that grasps Malick characters, who seem to live in an ever-present now.
In terms of the filmmaking, this movie is visually beautiful, as expected from Malick, and the actors are all engaged in the moment. But I have the same problem with it that I had with Knight Of Cups: Malick can engender some sympathy when he's following one character who loves someone passionately and can't keep the relationship alive. But when that character then starts a new passionate relationship, and then another and another and another, the emotions stop feeling real or even important. It's no longer about love, it's about the self-absorbed, intellectualized illusion of love. This time, all the characters are doing that rather than one of them, and it means the story has no center, and everyone comes to feel like they're the exact same shallowly written character.
And the same goes for the physical contact. The first time Malick shoots two people closely examining each other's bodies, and playfully or passionately exploring each other, it's sexy and intense. The 37th time it happens in the same film, I just wanted him to get a new shtick. Here's the thing about real relationships: the people in them talk to each other, rather than just stroking each other constantly.
If this was the first Malick movie I'd ever seen, I'd probably love it. But what he does has started to seem redundant and repetitive, and incredibly draggy. At some point, "pretty and moody" stops being enough.
And that's leaving out the end of the film, where {Spoiler!}
Natalie Portman's character apparently takes inspiration from her Star Wars character, and as near as I can tell, chooses to die from beautiful sadness. It doesn't get more abstracted, unconnected, and unsatisfying than that.
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Post by mortimer605 on Mar 22, 2017 2:56:06 GMT
5/5
It doesn't have the architectural conceit that anchored Knight of Cups (no Los Angeles and its circular highways,) so it took me a very long time to find my footing in it. I think that's fitting, because the characters in Song to Song are concerned with their relationship to passing time, questions of "what am I doing now" versus "what am I doing next?" If there is some kind of structural conceit, it's found in the multiplicity of characters and their bouncing off of one another. There's a Point A and a Point Z, and these people become each other's points in between. I think I've finally come full circle and can praise Song to Song because it has Characters I Care About.
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4/5
Flew down to New York for a trip, partly because I was anxious to see this, and while I haven't seen a masterpiece in it yet, I was still satisfied.
I will say however that after this film, I'm glad Malick is choosing to change styles (presumably) with a foreign, more traditional sounding biopic, because--at least for now--Malick seems to be running low on ideas and cinematic tricks with this current stream of conscious style. This one admittedly felt a bit too long for me, probably has the most voiceover and romantic playfulness, and Chivo's cinematography doesn't seem as lush and full of vigor as the preceding films - predominantly interior shots with shallow space, not as much nature as Malick's other films. I did notice some POV shots which I don't recall being in any other Malick films to my knowledge, but it is quite suggestive of what I found to be one of the core themes of the film: morals of the individual between the idealized and the projected.
Characters seem dictated by how they present themselves, how they seem well-intentioned but each action and decision made in a dialogue with someone seems to muddy their intentions a bit - they alienate each other by feeling they've failed themselves at attempting to express themselves to the ones they love, always questioning whether they made the right intention at every turn. We have some perfect image of ourselves that gets lost in the process and they internalize it a bit and push people away or at times even succumb to embracing their great uncertainties and revelling in their flaws that does further damage, particularly in Fassbender/Cook's case. But in line with the title and this recent style Malick has adopted, things are always changing and fleeting, we can never have everything, never be one absolute thing we want to be. But it is about overcoming that doubt, achieving a self-awareness but not caving into the more destructive id and not letting it consume every second and moment in the now and becoming stagnant.
We do things we want to take back, we miss some chances, we juggle our personal ambitions and relationships in tandem with each other constantly, perhaps at the expense of the other, but we can't appease everyone.
At the closure of this recent Malick triptych, in a departure from To the Wonder and Knight of Cups, this one ends with concrete proof of love finding success. While not diametrically opposed to To the Wonder having just a natural image representative of some intangible, unfound solution, there was always a sense of hope from the ending of it and Knight of Cups, and the proof materializes here, perhaps a key strength and weakness of this film, but the defining moment of the film and this loose trilogy.
This is probably quite insufficient for a breakdown of the film and what I can unearth from it, will of course revisit it at some other time and perhaps find more, doesn't feel like a favourite yet, but we'll see how things fare down the road.
P.S. Lots of funny moments like Fassbender pretending to be a monkey, and also, Die Antwoord songs in the film, nice.
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Post by sethan on Mar 22, 2017 12:20:57 GMT
I saw Malick 's Wonder for first time. The actress is great. The film would be much better without Ben A. He's so unexpressed and more annoying than shippers of Cate and Roo. Next will be Knight of Cups for second time. Some critic said it was a trilogy with Song to Song
Some people already call this "Weightless" trilogy or "Sad Lovers" trilogy 
Weightless Trilogy is a shade? :) To the Wonder has moments of real emotion and beauty, But at times it feels disconnected and I jumped out of the screen as viewer. A very Malick experience. :) |
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Post by sethan on Mar 22, 2017 12:31:34 GMT
THIS IS IMPORTANT:
"Even at his most indulgent, Malick brings something to the movies that no one else ever has, a way of looking at the world that is easily imitated but has never been equaled. It’s worth sifting through the sometimes half-baked philosophizing and breathy poeticism to see through his eyes"
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Post by sethan on Mar 22, 2017 16:41:11 GMT
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Post by sethan on Mar 22, 2017 16:47:02 GMT
A film that does this to a viewer. It's a good film in my book. Period
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Post by mortimer605 on Mar 22, 2017 19:13:09 GMT
Letterboxd.
4/5
His most character-centric film since The New World and maybe his best since then as well. One thing I forgot to mention is I love how eclectic the soundtrack is. Malick doesn't reserve himself to one style to tell this story, but a multiplicity that helps the film feel like one set in the direct here and now as well as in a timeless mode.
Full review in this podcast: link
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Post by sethan on Mar 22, 2017 21:07:57 GMT
Good read!
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Post by mortimer605 on Mar 23, 2017 13:57:26 GMT
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Post by sethan on Mar 23, 2017 16:21:57 GMT
A Song to see.
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Post by sethan on Mar 23, 2017 18:49:04 GMT
Some people already call this "Weightless" trilogy or "Sad Lovers" trilogy
Weightless Trilogy is a shade? :) To the Wonder has moments of real emotion and beauty, But at times it feels disconnected and I jumped out of the screen as viewer. A very Malick experience. :) I saw Knight again. I liked more than the first time especially the second half but I think I connected more with To the Wonder. Is that too weird?. I adore the "I teach this moment" sequence in Knight tho. And holy shit Malick and Lubeski together are better creators than God. Seriously. I'm not even joking. Cant wait for Song to Song and the close ups to the Rooney's hands. |
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Post by RedSparrow on Mar 23, 2017 18:54:07 GMT
Weightless Trilogy is a shade? :) To the Wonder has moments of real emotion and beauty, But at times it feels disconnected and I jumped out of the screen as viewer. A very Malick experience. :) I saw Knight again. I liked more than the first time especially the second half but I think I connected more with To the Wonder. Is that too weird?. I adore the "I teach this moment" sequence in Knight tho. And holy shit Malick and Lubeski together are better creators than God. Seriously. I'm not even joking. Cant wait for Song to Song and the close ups to the Rooney's hands. And hopefully her feet  {Spoiler}{Spoiler}{Spoiler!} I sound so creepy  |
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Post by RedSparrow on Mar 23, 2017 21:29:28 GMT
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Post by mortimer605 on Mar 24, 2017 3:53:39 GMT
Weightless Trilogy is a shade? :) To the Wonder has moments of real emotion and beauty, But at times it feels disconnected and I jumped out of the screen as viewer. A very Malick experience. :) I saw Knight again. I liked more than the first time especially the second half but I think I connected more with To the Wonder. Is that too weird?. I adore the "I teach this moment" sequence in Knight tho. And holy shit Malick and Lubeski together are better creators than God. Seriously. I'm not even joking. Cant wait for Song to Song and the close ups to the Rooney's hands.
I enjoyed To the Wonder more but I think Knight of Cups is better film overall (don't ask me why exactly, not sure what to tell you  ), therefore it's ranked higher on my Malick list. Knight of Cups is one of those films you learn to appreciate more with time, when we all get more older, experienced, wiser.
I love Knight of Cups trailer, it's a small miracle by itself 
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Post by RedSparrow on Mar 24, 2017 8:03:56 GMT
I saw Knight again. I liked more than the first time especially the second half but I think I connected more with To the Wonder. Is that too weird?. I adore the "I teach this moment" sequence in Knight tho. And holy shit Malick and Lubeski together are better creators than God. Seriously. I'm not even joking. Cant wait for Song to Song and the close ups to the Rooney's hands.
I enjoyed To the Wonder more but I think Knight of Cups is better film overall (don't ask me why exactly, not sure what to tell you ), therefore it's ranked higher on my Malick list. Knight of Cups is one of those films you learn to appreciate more with time, when we all get more older, experienced, wiser.
I love Knight of Cups trailer, it's a small miracle by itself
I love this trailer so much. I remember I used to watch it on a loop, it's so well done. I've been dying to know ever since it released what the two songs were that played in here, especially the first one. Can you please tell me if you know, I still couldn't find it :cry1: |
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