Asur

I can't remember at the moment who said (or wrote) that a director, when he ceases to be an artist, becomes a photographer, but this movie amply proves it. Gorgeous to look at, it's nothing but a moving Playboy centerfold; no real sexuality, just empty echoes of it. The only good thing about it is the choice of both leading actors - they are just as plastic as they were obviously supposed to be.

There is one real drama here - the tragedy of Kubrick the old man. I don't think it would be hard to explain and analyze it, but I am not going to try; I respect Kubrick far too much for all the great movies that kept inspiring me through many a decade. This one only made me sad.

I guess that when starting a movie like "The White Raven", a team has two basic choices. They can make a James Bond type of film in which the hero will keep falling into traps most terrible from which he will miraculously escape with his life and tie undisturbed - which is quite OK because we all know in advance that he is indestructible. Or they can make a realistic movie in which the hero is very much destructible and has to depend solely on his wits and on some more or less sympathetic people to survive - if he does survive at all; we can never be sure.

And then there is the third type which tries to combine the first two - which seems to be a sure formula for disaster. "The White Raven" is, of course, just one of many such movies which may start, as this one does, quite decently in the realistic direction and then suddenly turn around, becoming more and more laughable right to the last "deus ex machina" (in this case one of the most stupid I have ever seen).

As such, the movie could perhaps be enjoyed as an unintentional parody if it were not for repeatedly ghoulish scenes which make one think that its authors are fetishists of a rather unpleasant sort; and only to their kind can "The White Raven" be safely recommended.