ozzy_2003

Being partly raised on horror movies, I thought I had seen it all. This is something comparable to Pasolinis SALO or the intense last half hour of REQUIEM FOR A DREAM. Boy Meets Girl is far better than SALO though. It's interesting that one still can get really moved and affected by a movie after all I've seen through the years. It kind of feels like I'm a "newborn" movie viewer, and makes me believe in the power of the medium again. While I didn't really know what to think immediately after watching it, when a couple of days had gone by, I concluded that it really is an exceptional and important movie. When I watch violence in other movies now, it feels too slick, glamourizing and "movie-stylized", while in this film one gets a gut wrenching feeling of what violence is like for real. That's due to Brady's technical brilliance, the unflinching long takes, merciless sound design (during the drug trip sequence) and believable performances. Seeing a slow revenge for unnoticed/secret crimes is also a masterstroke (Phonebooth, a decade later, had a similar plot in that someone's being watching you and noting down your crimes and now they are going to make you pay). The revelation by merciless interrogation exposes acts of violent homophobia and racism, brought into context for what they ultimately are, sickening and ugly no matter what motives lie behind them. One can argue about the excessive use of profanity being unnecessary but that is one of the films target points "they are only words" and in an 18 cert film safely used, but it is more like the whole film is an expressionistic nightmare like The Cabinet of Dr Caligari than reality normal anyway. The incessant drone on the soundtrack also signals a kind of journey into dangerous and uncharted territory of the human mind. The effective use of clever camera fading and fade up techniques, invisible cuts and so forth, makes me think that it is now possible for someone to actually make the movies Anthony Burgess predicted in A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, which are shown to Alex during his brainwashing. Scenes of ultra-violence filmed in long, sickening single takes, and one of the few passages in literature, which I find profoundly disturbing. Ultimately I must recommend this movie for everyone, but be prepared to be upset and shocked.