Yeah, the issue of whether performances are "realistic" generally means little or nothing to me. Depending on the milieu that can mean so many different things; and anyway, many different gradations of recognizable, acceptable "reality"
can work. However, I do agree with Schreck and am glad to see these thoughts expressed because he's getting at the real problem here.
HerrSchreck wrote:For Reygadas typical human life simply cannot exist because what he is doing with his camera/with his film doesn't permit its existence. The goal is not the searching out and revelation of something running beneath a wonderful script and fabulous performances from a blazing cast. For Reygadas everything is subverted, first and foremost, to the making of a self-conscious art film... which by it's nature, cannot in this case let in unjaundiced human activity.
As I say, I don't really care if it seems like "everything is subverted" to the artist's agenda. This argument itself can, as we know, be applied to many filmmakers we all love by those who adamantly do not love them and steadfastly are unwilling to comprehend them. My problem though is related to the above observations (and it's hard for me to speak about this now as it's probably been a year since I've seen the film). Frankly, I never believed that Regadas understood the
implications of what he was presenting us with. I fully believe he understands what he's "trying to say" but the subversion Schreck speaks of is tenuous because it all sits very uneasily within the context of his presumed thematic ambition. The subversion is often counter-productive in other words. I also fervently resisted most of Reygadas' compositions as they frustratingly seemed to distract from his points rather than enhance or complement them. I remember the stuff between the farmer and his mastress specifically being blocked out within an inch of its life. That didn't feel cosmic in the sense of Bresson or Oliveira or Kubrick but rather mundane, petty and small; as though the formalism itself automatically conferred profundity to the moment.
And this gets at the heart of the problem for me. Unlike many apparently I was completely unmoved by the ending. I get why others are and why, in fact, if they are it may be seen as some kind of triumph of Reygadas' art but this is where the implications of those moves come in and disrupt things for me. While I am not completely opposed to Reygadas' presumptive pantheistic gesture it still resonates flatly because it doesn't feel thought through and our determinations about it are therefore arrived at even more arbitrarily than usual. The film pivots disharmoniously between tacit pantheism and atheism, more of a demonstartion of a lack of metaphysical committment than anything else, however noble philosophically I may find those intentions.
I get that he's trying to tie resurrection into pure quirks of nature, things just happeneing and being "as they are", etc. But the fact is his ambition seems to be in fusing that sensibility within a context of idealism or absolute synergy. He wants to be both naturalistic and cosmic, suggest the purely deterministic and the seeming caprice of contingency, the personal and the spiritual, but whether we are meant to or even are able to coherently synthesize these perceptions is left frustratingly vague. Frustrating because it always felt to me like a dodge rather than some position on unavoidable ambiguity. It functions poorly as drama because it's far too diffuse in its effect. It isn't necessarily incoherent but it isn't necessarily convincing either. I suspect it may work well for those who want to be convinced of the legitimacy of this non-view, methodistically open minded to everything regardless of whether such an ideological position clutters fatally the possibility of any authentic, unqualified response. It's a daring gambit (rather than just blatantly making an atheist
Ordet) and, for me, an appreciated one in theory but it's too philosophically and psychologically lax to have the impact it desires. It needed more rigor beyond that of its formalist contrivances.
I have been hesitant to post a response to
Silent Light prior to this for several reasons. One thing is I originally saw it on a shall-we-say compromised medium which clearly can't help (though I disagree with the typical Barmy argument that the big screen experience is necessarily make or break). And I haven't felt much compelled to reurn to it. On top of this, my history with Reygadas is such that I can't imagine there won't be a need to return to it, if only for a reassessment. I hated
Japon when I first saw it but expereinced a complete turn around in attitude upon a second viewing. This rarely happens (
There Will Be Blood was the only other recent example), so I am willing to believe there may be a more here, a wiser sensibility alluding me presently, than I am giving it credit for. Still, given my history with Reygadas I went into this one prepared to surrender myself (which I sense is the necessary requirement to comprehend what he is doing) and it didn't happen. It aggressively didn't happen.
