bluegreenbluegreen

I enjoyed this movie.

The atmospherics are good- there is a noir quality to it. That feeling of a world gone awry with an unfocused, city-wide menace always seeping in from the background.

Contemporary college campus noir- it looks wonderful, but..

All the characters accept a morally compromised world. Bad, sometimes really bad, acts are banal and ordinary.

The plot is engaging, and fast, and full. Fun, quirky characters abound. Halfway through a full story is told, but it just keeps unfolding in pleasing and surprising ways. It's really quite a good movie.

Also the acting is very good through-out. Good, full characters.

The music, a sort of self-mocking surfy/euro-loungy thing brings a smile..

And, even though the events and actions are somewhat preposterous, the story and the characterizations are psychologically true.

The protagonist is truly frightening, as is the world she comes from, but she's also kind of appealing.

The film is bleached to the ruddy-yellows of turmeric, the color of curry, and to the color of saffron. It gives a dreamy quality to the thing... yellow's not a pretty or a soothing color, but there is a spiritual openness, a sun-bakedness, about it here. We occasionally get to balm our eyes in deep indigo for contrast and rest.

This spirit quest is dreamlike, the men are plucked from their lives and placed on this flimsy, beautiful train, which rocks and sways as it cuts slowly across the savanna. It's a command performance called by the oldest brother who has had an epiphany, and there are some things to work out (that's about all he knows about it), and it will take all three.

The dry humor of interaction that calls back to their history as brothers- which we are wisely left to intuit and guess at ourselves- is delicious and pleasing. Just the right notes are hit here.. we understand just enough of who these men, and these boys, are.

It's a delight to watch the spirit of the quest move into and animate the brothers; to watch the playing out of old patterns, the play of old hurts and loves, the reaching back and reaching forward, the odd increase in both humility and surety that comes with spiritual growth.

The music is exactly what it should be- intelligent, sensual, dreamy.

The flat-on snapshot like compositions of the three brothers are interesting and effective.

The picture moves well, and resolves well. It is sensual and touching and funny. It is beautifully shot. The players are well suited to their roles, and play off each other very very well. The extraneous characters and scenes are not extraneous in any way, they complement and complete..

An absolute delight.