Reviews

MINOR SPOILERS HEREIN

I was forced to watch this movie for my Media Criticism and Theory Class. The film looked promising, a great director, two great lead actors who I respect immensely, and an interesting subject matter. The film quickly went downhill. The entire film is stylistically and structurally disjointed. The director didn't seem to know if she wanted to make the film realistic or not, so she just sort of goes into non-sequitor fantasy sequences at random points in the film, most of which just end up looking silly in an otherwise realistic looking film. The whole thing with Ruth's running off and joining a cult would have created more sympathy for her if there was ever any actual explanation as to what the cult was doing or proof that they were actually dangerous. This was never proved and, in fact, the entire religion actually comes off looking legitimate, especially with the fantasy shot in which the guru touches Ruth's forehead and a third eye opens up in her forehead, which suggests that this guru actually does have spiritual powers, which contradicts the rest of the film.

Not that this matters, however, as halfway through the film, the writers decided that the story was no longer about the cult and just made it about this weird sexual relationship between a psychiatrist and his client. Seeing Kate Winslet naked seems to be everyone's favorite part of this film but, as wonderful as that is, it comes out of nowhere and is made ludicrous and disgusting by the fact that she is peeing on herself. And while seeing Harvey Keitel running around in the deserts of Australia wearing a little red dress is certainly entertaining, I really think that, at that point, the audience is laughing AT the film, not with it.

Don't believe these people who try to tell you that this movie is "over some people's heads". These are the same people who think that if anything is weird or doesn't make sense, then it has some deeper meaning that they're missing, so they better pretend to see it so that they look smart. You know, the "Emperor's New Clothes" kind of people. This movie is crap. The characters are unbelievable, the dialogue is pretentious and annoyingly pseudo intellectual, the imagery lacks any form of subtlety and, aside from a few laughs and some good performances from Keitel and Winslet, there are no redeeming qualities to this film.

1 out of 10

Going into Mona Lisa Smile (or I guess I should say that I was dragged in, that would be far more accurate) I anticipated a cliched and trite female oriented film. In fact, the only reason I was willing to go at all was because I think Maggie Gyllenhaal is the best actress out there today. I despise Julia Roberts, I have mixed feelings about Julia Stiles and I've never been a big fan of Kirsten Dunst, so I wasn't expecting great things from this film.

At first the film seemed formulaic. The renegade teacher who stirs things up at a staunchly traditional school, an obvious knock off of "Dead Poets Society", as most people have pointed out. However, the formula was made original in that the ending was realistic. The characters didn't all simply reject the teachings that the school had forced upon them, they took a more realistic approach. And the characters surprised me, they didn't all meet with the destinies that I assumed they would at the beginning of the film.

As far as the performances go, I was surprised by all of the actresses involved. Julia Stiles seemed to put in a promising performance at the beginning of the film, but then her character became more downplayed, despite indications early on that she would be the most central of the four student characters. Maggie Gyllenhaal was brilliant as always. It may not have been comparable to her stellar performance in Secretary, but it was great nonetheless. The truly surprising performance was that of Kirsten Dunst who was absolutely phenomenal. Normally a teen star used only as a box office draw, she was absolutely excellent as the bitch of the group, more or less, who bought into the attitudes that were forced upon the girls of the school. She was also the character who changed the most throughout the course of the film, which she portrayed quite well. Ginnifer Goodwin, an actress I'd never heard of before, was equally talented in her role as Connie. Even Julia Roberts had a few moments of her own, such as the scene in which she launches on a tirade against both the standards of the school and the images presented to women through advertising.

There were a few flaws in the film, most notably the occasional outfit Julia Robert's character is found in which didn't seem to fit the time.

The most glaring problem with the film would seem to be that it was written and directed by men (which would obliterate the opinion of a certain reviewer on this site who claimed that this film "hates men"). Perhaps this particular sentiment should have been expressed by a woman. Nonetheless, the point it makes is an important one, and, although I am a man and can't fully understand the restrictions placed on women myself, it seemed to me that these men managed to capture just the right feel for this film.

There are those who can look at this movie and see nothing more than a huge, violent blood fest. While I can see where these people are coming from, the simple fact that they write this off as merely a bloody action film is proof of their total ignorance towards the art of film. Yes, there is a lot of violence in this film and there is a rather weak plotline. However, Tarantino does this intentionally because, in making this film, he decided that he was going to devote all of his attention to one aspect of his filmmaking technique: style.

What people fail to understand is that, artistically, there is absolutely nothing wrong with this if it is done well. Every aspect of this film uses a style so original that it is destined to change filmmaking for years to come. From his separation of the film into chapters, to his integration of Japanese style animation, to his easy transition from black and white to color in the big fight sequence, to the breathtakingly beautiful cinematography, the film plays out like nothing that has ever been seen before on the screen.

::WARNING, VERY MINOR SPOILERS STARTING HERE::

The film follows a stream of consciousness narrative rather than a chronological one. This is a sadly underused device in filmmaking that is strangely much more popular in literature. The fact that we know after only ten minutes of the film that The Bride will successfully kill O-Ren Ishi is reminiscent of such literary works as Gabriel García Márquez's Chronicle of a Death Foretold or even Thornton Wilder's Our Town. And strangely, this knowledge doesn't seem to take away the suspense we feel during The Bride's fight with Ishi and her henchmen/women. This is because of the fact that the desperation of the character's predicament (which somehow is not countered by the character's cocky attitude) is portrayed so well that we feel the desperation ourselves and become worried about the character vicariously, even if The Bride herself doesn't seem as worried as we are.

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So why choose to chop the film up and present it in a stream of consciousness format rather than chronologically? Well, one could simply say that it's all about style, but style needs to have a purpose if you're going to do it right. The stream of consciousness style forces us into The Bride's mindset so that we can relate to her more. This becomes a necessity because of the fact that the character is by nature so cold and distant that, no matter how effective Thurman's portrayal of the character may be, the acting alone can't give us the necessary sympathy for the character.

Another claim people have made against this movie is that the brutal violence and the glamorization of it is irresponsible on Tarantino's part. But, as glamorous as the film is in its portrayal of this violence, there is also an element of surrealism in this film, although it's not the surrealism we've come to expect, even in artistic and experimental films. The surrealism is in the exaggeration of certain aspects of the film, most notably the color scheme. The beautifully rich color scheme of this film is strikingly artificial to the point of being ridiculous. The Bride, who is known as the Blonde Killer, rides a yellow motorcycle and dresses in a yellow jumpsuit. This all seems far too convenient to be real. And that's the point. The artificial color scheme gives the film a sort of plastic gloss so that it becomes impossible to take things such as the violence of the movie seriously.

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There are also several other obvious examples of exaggeration which render the movie unrealistic in the mind of the viewer. The fact that The Bride survived a bullet to her head somehow, a fact which is the basis of the whole film, is utterly ridiculous. The fact that The Bride can somehow bring a samurai sword with her onto a commercial airplane and not raise any suspicion is another glaring example of exaggeration. Because of these exaggerations, the viewer is put into a separate universe with the understanding that none of the events taking place in this film have any bearing on reality whatsoever.

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So, no, Kill Bill is not just another of the mindless, testosterone-driven action films that our culture is constantly bombarded with despite their lack of artistic and intellectual integrity. The film is a masterpiece of visual style from a director who demonstrates that he knows how to carefully craft a film to best convey a sense and a feeling he wishes to get across to his audience. And most of all, we have to understand that this is an extremely experimental film in terms of style. So much so that it will not only shake up the film industry, but will entirely shatter every unwritten rule about the visual and narrative aspects of filmmaking. It is thanks to this film that we will soon see a sudden and massive influx of directors willing to experiment and stretch the limits of visual style thanks to this monumental achievement, this action packed masterpiece, from Quentin Tarantino.