Rating of
4/4
A song of light and darkness.
memento_mori - wrote on 06/24/13
The title of this review may seem somewhat implausible and overbearing to some, but when I think of the first time I watched The Place Beyond the Pines this year, I feel a connection.
This is one of those movies that reminds me why I love going to the cinema, why a movie can be more than entertainment once in a while.
The actors absolutely give themselves to their roles; even more minor characters like the ones of Eva Mendes and Ben Mendelsohn pull off such huge performances. A way too see it may be: they're all in a perfectly functioning clockwork. Each handle moves to every shed of a tear, every hour strikes at a sudden revelation. Every peak in the story is a perfect hit.
Derek Cianfrance's Blue Valentine was already a great piece bearing the image of marriage. It pondered over the fact if people can hate each other and love each other at the same time and managed this so flawlessly to the end that I didn't know how Cianfrance could top his first screenplay.
In his latest script, he has compiled a collection of characters and plot points to focus on not only marriage or love, but family entirely. What it means, what it can change in a person's temperament (Luke Glanton), what it can morally influence in people who aren't even related (Avery Cross) and what it can leave you with if it breaks apart (Romina Gutierrez).
The cinematography is breath-taking. So many components of nature combined. Lots of close-ups of faces, smiles and frowns, colorful blurs of the night and charred images of the pine trees as we zoom by as if on a motorbike. If I ever make a film, I want Sean Bobbitt to lense it.
This film's ending also left on the exact perfect note that simply ensured its immaculate pacing from beginning to end. It had the same closure of Blue Valentine, but also instituted the sense of wonder and open lane that is life itself.
Nothing I say will give this human drama enough justice or fully explain why I deeply love it.
In my eyes, it's a perfect bestowment of guilt, fear, vindication, the need to protect, the essence of family and every aspected human emotion. And all in one film.
Maybe it's just me, but everyone has their expositions.
