Rating of
3/4
A movie about... um...
memento_mori - wrote on 11/16/13
Prepare for the longest one hour and forty-five minute movie of your life.
It is incredible how well this movie manages to pull off a slow pace.
It is so grounded and long that it begins to feel real at some point. Like we are peering into the lives of troubled human beings, who are so well displayed through the efforts of writer-director Abbas Kiarostami. I've never seen a movie of his, and I can see why his name is not exactly surfaced in the world of pop culture.
I think this is one of those films you either like or don't like, because of how it treats its characters and the atmosphere it sets. If you really think about it, the main theme in this film is suffering of the working class, the display of the diligent Japanese culture. Maybe I'm talking too much into it, but in a film where scenes linger and shots go on for minutes, there is healthy room for interpretation.
There is also an excellent theme of people watching other people. It offers a viewpoint from which we see where the characters are at momentarily. Adding silences and close-ups of faces during otherwise empty scenes is simply brilliant.
On the other hand, it does become a little uneventful. I don't think much is achieved over the course of the film and the ending left me virtually blank inside, as if I hadn't watched anything.
Its main strength is coincidentally its main weakness. By deciding less is more, the director refrains from necessary details. To leave us cold, waiting for the next confusing plot line is a little naive, I must say.
While it offered an extremely interesting start, Like Someone in Love is a missed opportunity, at least in my eyes.
There is so much that could have assisted the already incredible mood and storytelling perspective of the first twenty minutes, but it for some reason decided to stay in the first twenty minutes for the entire runtime.
