Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
It's Speed-Eating Cataclysm Time!!, 21 Aug 2007
Honestly, with all the fuss surrounding this superlative film, you'd expect Sodom-And-Gommorah to shoot through your Cathode Ray Tube and vomit creosote into your wallet. Nope. It's all very survivable, apart from a few graphic instances (which the dear-old Auntie BBFC could have excised within a heartbeat, but they didn't. There MUST be a God!). I suppose vegetarians may have a few Heart Palpitations, but there you go.
It also cocks a snoot at those naysayers who have a firm belief in the inferiority of Eastern-European cinema - "Taxidermia" is crammed with more CGI than your average Jenna Bush photoshoot. Guy Ritchie be damned, he's scrawling graffiti on the side of the Venus De Milo and can't spell "OK" yet. Take note, British cinema is LIGHT YEARS behind this. We've lost the war Comrades.
Extras? Erm, there aren't any, so pinch those pennies in anticipation of the 3-disc special edition in 2011, when it'll be released to more fanfare than the Watergate tapes. Hey-ho!
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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A warts and all biography of mankind., 1 May 2008
This film is the perfect antidote for those fed up of feeling inferior after watching the Hollywoodised view of life with perfectly groomed beauties sipping skinny lattes in trendy coffee bars.
This film gets to the root of humanity by showing the ugly side of life. Stripped of all but our most basic animal instincts (mainly sex and eating) the film manages to be grim, but often darkly humourous. The film intends to shock, and I'm sure that more prudish audiences would struggle to stomach some scenes. Personally I never felt offended, but I can see how some might be.
We see the three separate stories, linked presumably by family history, over three generations and everything is laid bare. There's perfect scope to build a fondness for the characters, but this never really happens. There was only a brief point at which I cared about what would happen to someone in the film (the Hungarian man and wife super-eaters) and although I still felt compelled to follow the film through to see how the three stories progress, my interest was minimal.
The fantastic direction and artistic imagery make this film watchable. In fact, they make it enjoyable despite the grim subject matter. Without such a strong creative approach I'd have had to force myself to watch the film.
So in a nutshell: A film with characters who lack the depth required to invoke a magnetic appeal, but expressed in an imaginative way which has to be seen to be appreciated. Not always the easiest film the watch, but maybe that's because it reminds us too much of what we all really are. It gets 3.5 stars from me, I'd love to have this fall the way of a 4, but I'm going to go with a 3. Some good bonus features on this DVD (ANY in fact!) would have no doubt helped sway me to a a higher score.
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2 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Taxidermia is taxing on patience, 18 Jan 2008
So, Taxidermia. A film that is basically 90 minutes of taboos strung together into a vague narrative form. I didn't like this movie. Yes, it's shock cinema, which I have no problem with. No matter how many penis shots, vomit scenes or swear words are depicted in a film, it doesn't offend me. The problem is, it's all rather boring. After a while, I was so bored by these three incompetent stories that I was hoping that one of the grotesque Hungarians would vomit just for something to watch.
Yes, it is bizarre in places - but never bizarre enough. I feel like I've seen all these gags and tokenistic motifs of obscurity too many times before. It is devoid of wit. For a shock cinema example, it's never really shocking enough - just vaguely puerile.
However, thankfully, it knows what it is, and doesn't descend into pretentiousness like other shock movies have done. Plus, there are some genuinely funny moments in the film that are original in themselves, but not worthy of viewing the film in it's own right.
If it was longer than 90 minutes, I probably wouldn't have bothered.
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