Marcas do Passado

I caught this movie halfway through. I was taken in and very intrigued but missing a lot, obviously. So I rewatched from the beginning and so glad I did. Some things might have been more confusing but I had seen further down so now I was understanding. It's definitely not a film for everyone. And I'm additionally annoyed that the US version is cut. However, all in all, I really did enjoy this film. I loved the actors and I thought they played their parts well. It does leave a lot open ended or up to interpretation and that can be frustrating. But I just can't stop thinking about it. I love those films that just stay with you and make you want to continue u deters ding and wrapping your mind around it.

I am a serious and intelligent movie watcher of more than 55 years. I look for movies that attempt to say something when selecting an indie. After watching any movie, if it stays on my mind for days or weeks, I count it as a worthwhile film to have watched. Aloft has been on mind for weeks since viewing it.

I suspect that those of us with moderately wretched lives due to personal and family tragedy are prone to be more affected by the effort. You know, those of us who still do not have all of the answers to life even after 60+ years on this rock and years of formal philosophical and literary education.

I recommend that if anything in the trailer, reviews or other sources about the movie appeals to you at all, you should watch the movie with an open mind and make your own decision about its "worth".

Connolly and Laurent (sp?) were compelling.

This film tells the story of a journalist, who sets up a meeting between a young man and his mother who tragically abandoned him twenty years ago in a cold, icy land.

I don't quit know what "Aloft" is about, because of a poor story and a poorly presented story. The non-linear storyline does not help to clear things up, and in fact it confuses and meddles up everything. Central plot ideas are poorly conveyed, for example the first scene seems completely unrelated and even irrelevant to the rest of the film. Motives and actions of characters are poorly explained that most of the time I don't know what they are doing. As a result I don't even know what exactly drove the mother to abandon her son. I understand there was a tragedy, but what exactly happened that linked the tragedy to the abandonment, which was poorly presented that it happened already before I realised that the scene was about abandonment.

I watched it for Jennifer Connelly, but unfortunately "Aloft" is not a high point for Jennifer Connelly's portfolio of work.

The acting is fine, Jennifer Connelly is always good as is Cillian Murphy and the kid-actors were fine as well.

Visually it's also a nice looking movie, with limited colours that creates and cold and melancholic feeling which suits the movie just fine, because it is rather melancholic.

The movie though is just good enough not to be bad, but far from great.

Needless to say Jennifer Connelly's character is very spiritual and believes in healing, I believe her character is supposed to be Native American although I am not quite sure about this but a lot of her spiritual beliefs stem from them if nothing else.

So it helps if you have some sort of interest in that or at least an open mind because it's not always very up front and direct in it's approach to tell the story with plenty of metaphors and subtlety more so than direct big orchestrated dramatic scenes.

The blu-ray version (at least the one I watched could possibly differ in some countries) is 97 minutes, and not 112 minutes like it says on IMDb.

From what I've heard the version shown on festivals was indeed 112 minutes but it wasn't received that well so they cut it down to 97 minutes for the blu-ray/DVD market.

And although that caught me off guard initially, I'm not quite sure if it would be able to sustain my interest for 112 minutes so this could be one of those times where the cut down version is actually better, although I of course can't be sure about this.

I avoided watching this movie because of such negative reviews but after reading the synopsis, I decided to try it. All three lead actors were phenomenal - such emotional performances! Though the story is a not without flaws, the chosen actors - both adult and child - provide a flow that keeps the movie moving. I'm glad I read about the movie before watching. It bounces between time periods quickly and knowing the story ahead of time, made this easier to navigate. Cillian Murphy's depiction of an adult man dealing with the aftermath of a traumatic childhood is real and raw. Jennifer Connelly's role as a mother who lost one son and abandons another while finding 'fame' as a healer, is both complicated and vulnerable. Give it a chance - the movie has more to it than you might think.