Além da Ilusão

15 minutes into the movie I started to feel unsettled, then I brightened up a bit when I realised I was watching a masterpiece of bad cinema. The story was bizarre and incoherent, the direction was laughable (I did actually laugh at several points), and the editing was performed by a psychopath on speed.

Natalie Portman struggled bravely through, but Depp was out-acted by the houseplants. The only good decision the director made was giving her as little to do as possible.

This movie could rival 'The Room', achieving cult status because it is so bad. I can honestly say this was the worst movie I've seen in my 60 years on the planet. Even the titles were bad - they were in a font so tiny as to be unreadable. I'm guessing the actors bribed the title guy so that nobody would see their names. I've given it one star for wardrobe, and because I feel sorry for Portman.

Two American sisters, Laura and Kate Barlow (Natalie Portman and Lily-Rose Deep) tour some theaters in Europe shortly before World War II with a spiritualism number, as one of them is a medium. When they are seen in Paris by André Korben, a film producer (Emmanuel Salinger), he becomes enthusiastic about them and proposes a project to them.

Plantarium is one of those films that contains interesting approaches (even intriguing and perverse) and several good ideas but that do not manage to integrate satisfactorily and that end up disintegrating, partly due to their nature, due to an ambiguity that is no longer effective and above all because of its cinematographic realization.

We know that a planetarium is a device that projects an illusory sky onto a vault. One of the themes of Rebecca Zlotowski's film is the crossroads between reality and fiction through cinematography (reminiscent of some stories by Horacio Quiroga on the subject) and a reality that in this case is ambiguous and that also seeks the help of parapsychology and the dream. As for the title in Spanish (Connection of love) it alludes to one of the perverse aspects of the plot (perhaps the most original) that remains halfway. And all this in a climate of the time that wants to be emerging but without achieving it at all.

Planetarium offers a very good performance by Emmnuel Salinger and as usual in these productions, a beautiful art design.

Tuned in because of Portman & Depp, but soon saw that there was no real depth to the story. History is always useful...

What this movie needs is more SUBSTANCE! We haven't a GHOST of a chance of being drawn into this play, because there is only loosely knit ideas..a faint line outlining what may become...something..but what ?? What a waste of talent!! Teaming Ms. Depp and Ms. Portman had me waiting impatiently to view this movie. typically...my favorite actors choose worthwhile projects. Natalie's last couple of endeavors, have left MUCH to be desired.

This movie needs to be connected...those dots of ideas need to be connected by story line we can understand and follow. Leave the abstract included....but fill it in with good ol creative action and dialogue that we can follow and appreciate. Better yet..make the story line COMPELLING !! Who better than Ms. Portman and Ms. Depp to carry a compelling theme ?

We must give Ms. Portman and Ms. Depp their due for taking such a bold chance..experimenting perhaps. But, ..IF they want to continue to be able to take such risks, they better choose a WINNER next few times round, or their names and past acting performances will be a distant, fond memory. Remember her?...Loved her in that one !

So I guess it didn't help that with a cast like this my expectations where quite high. However I felt like there was a lot of cliché a lot of historical approximation about the second world war, the film crisis pre WWII that it felt a bit overdone, as if they didn't wanted to talk about it but did it.. to cover the all thing.. And that's kind of the issue here, I feel like the film was a bit all over the place like a person suffering from ADHD. Too many topics, issue, character... not enough development. The acting was great, the scenario was close to it too but something was off...something seemed too fake..like this scene where they go out celebrating the first snow of the winter " overdone and clearly..it was some feather and not snow(right??). Or maybe I didn't like it cause all the characters were lost or not found yet ( lily) and that situation seems not appealing to me... Give it a look and let me know about your experience.