Caballero de Copas

Rick (Christian Bale) is a successful movie screenwriter in Hollywood. He goes out with free-spirited Della (Imogen Poots). He goes to a tarot card reading. Barry (Wes Bentley) is his brother and Joseph (Brian Dennehy) is his father. Nancy (Cate Blanchett) is his ex-wife. Elizabeth (Natalie Portman) is another woman from his past. Tonio (Antonio Banderas) is a womanizer. Helen (Freida Pinto) is a model. Karen (Teresa Palmer) is a stripper. Fr. Zeitlinger (Armin Mueller-Stahl) is a priest. Rick moves through L.A., Vegas, and other places as he searches for meaning with various loves and hookers.

The acting is improvisational. The movie moves through L.A. and this world in a dreamlike fashion. Rick doesn't say much. The camera moves through his world like a spirit observing his life. In a way, it's a very fitting vision of LaLaLand. It reminds me of an IMAX movie I saw back in the 80's with disconnected action vignettes in Canada. It was disembodying but fascinating... for about thirty minutes. Luckily, that's how long that IMAX movie was. In this case, this movie lasts for two hours. One does check out sooner or later. I try to stay with it but it does get away from me a couple of times.

It takes a while of watching the movie before starting to appreciate it. However, the longer you get, the more it starts growing on you. Its modernistic style is certainly not for everyone - but the combination of beautiful pictures and captivating music as well as the subtle messages of the flick, is in my opinion brilliant. As with many modernistic pieces it requires that you as a spectator participate, which is very giving, that is, if you actually do it. Then you will experience the emptiness we as human beings have to wrestle with: the apathetic nature of just following the flow: the slumber we experience the moment we stop being active and stop shaping our existence. The movie is a reminder not to fall in slumber, but to wake up and see the pearl.

Let's get one thing straight; Terrence Malick's films aren't exactly everyone's cup of tea. They're arguably the most unconventionally crafted movies from a well renowned director out there. Audiences normally criticize him for being highly pretentious and having no meaning in his work. But for some, his films represent everything we love about the artistic medium of motion pictures. With his latest offering, "Knight of Cups", Christian Bale stars as a screenwriter eager to explore his seedy persona in the dreamlike whereabouts of LA.

The film swoons along with a plethora of illusory montages, with Bale being Malick's primary focus as he trudges through the streets of downtown L.A., bizarre nightclubs swarming with vibrant dancers, house parties exclusively for the rich and meditative walks through the desolate wastelands of the Las Vegas desert. For the majority of the film he cuts a forlorn figure, basically looking to find some sort of significance of his life and finding the answer to faith. And in typical Malick fashion, none of what we see on screen is straightforward and we're left to determine our own meaning on the gorgeously composed images. Cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki once again has a vice like grip on how to bring an ethereal visual lyricism to surroundings.

Malick is one the very few directors who really embraces the beauty of artistic filmmaking. They may not follow a clear cut narrative, but there's no doubting that there's an alluring poetic rhythm that's present in his films. The key is for the viewer to figure out what Malick is attempting to portray. And even if you can't, just go along for the experience. Simply put, if you enjoy his films, you'll most likely find some sort of reward with this.

Knight of Cups (2015)

** (out of 4)

Terrance Malick's latest comes as a major disappointment as it centers on a screenwriter (Christian Bale) trying to cope with his life, his brothers suicide and trying to make sense of the various women in his life.

KNIGHT OF CUPS got released to mixed reviews and it ended up crashing at the box office, which is really understandable. I'm not going to say I enjoyed this movie because I really didn't but at the same time I can understand why some might see this and call it one of the best films of the year. As with THE TREE OF LIFE, this film is certainly going to leave viewers with mixed reactions but I found that film to be a masterpiece whereas this one is a blurred mess.

I will start off talking about the one great thing and that's the cinematography. This is certainly one of the greatest looking pictures of the year and Emmanuel Lubezki deserves a lot of credit for what he was able to do. The cinematography is so great that it actually upsets you that there wasn't more to the film. There's no question that the look of the movie is something brilliant and it comes across as a beautiful visual trip. It certainly adds an atmosphere to the movie and there's no question that it's the best thing about the picture.

With that said, everything else is pretty much a mess. The determining factor on your reaction to the movie will be your feelings towards the lead character. He's pretty much walking around in a daze of depression, thought or perhaps both. I never cared about the character or his problems so I got rather bored very early on. The majority of the movie has him banging hot ladies and then walking around feeling sad. Now I'm sure fans of the film will read a lot more into it and say I missed the point and perhaps I did. Or perhaps they're making it seem like there are things in the film that aren't really there.

KNIGHT OF CUPS isn't a film that's going to appeal to very many but even Malick fans are going to be divided with it. You've got a terrific cast include Bale, Natalie Portman, Cate Blanchett, Brian Dennehy, Frieda Pinto and Antonio Banderas but none of them are really given a chance to act as they're all sucked up by the visual grace that the director was going for.

When we go into a Terrence Malick film, we generally know what we're in for: a spiritual journey into Man's soul through unconventional, yet beautiful cinematic means. Malick's films are mostly unscripted and plot less, instead using nature to assist them iin creating a narrative by use of both visceral and symbolic imagery. And like Werner Herzog, there seems to be an almost divine force on their side.

Then there's Knight of Cups: A cinematic farce masquerading as profundity; an excruciating exercise in self indulgent banality. I couldn't believe what was unfolding before me. It was just empty--Lubezki's cinematography, the voice over, the character's-- just empty. A borderline Malick parody. It was almost as if the film was made by a machine, or perhaps some sort of alien being attempting to recreate human emotion. I literally felt nothing while watching it.

The only justifiable reasoning I can fathom on how Malick directed this film, is if he was trying to give the audience a hands on experience of the superficiality and mundanity of the protagonist's life. If this is the case, then I suppose the film is technically a success. If you can call that a success. I'd say the filming of paint drying would be an equally effective treatment of the subject.