On a day like any other, a young man who lives with his elderly parents in a middle-class apartment in Rio de Ganeiro, calmly kills them both with a razor-blade for no apparent reason. Seemingly unaffected by what he has done, he goes to a movie theater to watch 'Lost in Love'. The film on the screen involves the story of two young woman who spend time together in a beautiful country house where they find friendship turning into something more like love. Julio Bressane's Killed The Family And Went To The Movies is a film defying all narrative conventions, as fact and fiction, imagination and reality, blend together with no clear designation between what is happening on the screen and in our main character's world. The stories overflow their restraints, and Bressane uses every trick in the book (fragmented storytelling, dialog improvisation, jagged editing, juxtaposition,etc) to create a challenging but incredibly interesting experience. The film's structure feels musical, in that its rhythmic yet uneven with scenes that are resonant and others that seem superfluous. While watching the film I struggled at times to grasp exactly what Bressane was trying to say, but the film is no doubt loaded with interesting subtext. While the girls on screen share a loving and tender story overall, the film is littered with abrupt violence. I questioned if the violence-fueled outbursts which take over portions of the film were merely a viewpoint into the warped perception of the man watching the movie. I also wondered if this juxtaposition is merely used to capture both the darkness and light of life itself, showing how they are constantly intertwined. Honestly I could be reading into the film too much, but this is precisely why I found it so enjoyable, its ability to make the viewer question what they are watching and form their own conclusions. Like most experimental films, Julio Bressane's Killed The Family And Went To The Movies alternates between impactful and frustrating, boring and hypnotic, profound and brainless, but there is no denying its artistic merits as it makes the viewer think about an abundance of different things. 8.25/10
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorLove of all things cinema brought me here. Archives
June 2023
|