theowlofthegame

The problem with this film is that Art the clown doesn't speak. So we don't know what is making him kill all those people. It looks like he kills for fun. Which is plotwise a dumb reason to kill and torture. Anyway, I'm not a big fan of the genre, but my friend, who dragged me along, likes horror a lot. Expectations were low for me, and high for him. Expectations for neither of us were surpassed. The film wasn't that scary altogether. A couple of good scenes, with good acting. But Art is a farce as a character. Maybe I'm getting too old. Maybe I like a good story too much. The film has good pace, but lacks scary moments. The film doesn't like fake blood. Enjoy if you are into gore, torture and creepy clowns who don't speak.

There are many mysteries in the world: How were the piramids built? How deep is the rabbit hole? Who killed JFK? Etc... Today we can add a new mystery to the list: How on earth got Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, voted Best Movie in the Sight and Sound poll 2022?

I just watched this painstakingly slow movie, and I stopped several times to check how far I was into the film. The length of the film is 3h20. This is way too long for such a feeble plot. Hardly anything happens in this film: no dialogue, no music, no plots or side plots, scenes that take like forever. I'm sorry but the story could have been told in half of the time. It would have done the film good.

I read that Chantal Akerman killed herself at the age of 65. Legend goes she re-watched Jeanne Dielman and realised, like The Emperor's New Clothes, that the film had no substance and that movie buffs were afraid to admit that it wasn't the masterpiece everybody proclaimed.

Once again we have a case of 'the book is better than the film/miniseries'.

I've read the book twice, and believe me, the book is better than this 6 episodes series.

My biggest critique about the mini series is that the dialogues are really poor, and of little substance. And thus not believable. Short scenes with few information are put behind each other. This also means that we don't get much to know about the main protagonists, nor about how Charlie Croker ended up in such financial perils.

It is strange to see that a man so affluent as Charlie Croker has not many staff members (1 attorney, 1 secretary and 1 accountant). It is strange to see when he shows up at decisive meetings he doesn't have a lot to say, but huff and bluff and puff. Same goes for the bank accountants too actually. Their case is not well built up. These business scenes don't come across as very believable. It all feels a bit grotesque, cartoonesque... The best episode is the last episode, in which there is a long court scene in which the attorney brings a strong plea for justice, and later a memorable speech of Charlie in Georgia Tech Stadium. There should have been more scenes like this. Maybe my expectiations were a bit too high, but I was a bit dissapointed all in all.